Can Serde deserialize JSON to one of a set of types depending on the value of a field?

Question

I have a group of different messages that come in as JSON and can be distinguished based on a single field, but then each variant has a different collection of secondary fie

Answer 1

There is no point to keep "one" or "two" in your structure MessageOne and MessageTwo: if you have constructed this structure you already know if it is message one or message two.

extern crate serde; // 1.0.78
extern crate serde_json; // 1.0.27

#[macro_use]
extern crate serde_derive;

#[derive(Serialize, Deserialize, Debug)]
#[serde(tag = "op")]
enum Message {
    #[serde(rename = "one")]
    One { x: f64, y: f64 },
    #[serde(rename = "two")]
    Two { a: f64, b: f64 },
}

fn process_message(message: &Message) {
    println!("Processing a : {:?}", message);
}

use serde_json::Error;

fn main() -> Result<(), Error> {
    let data = r#"{
        "op": "one",
        "x": 1.0,
        "y": 2.0
    }"#;

    let message: Message = serde_json::from_str(data)?;
    process_message(&message);

    let data = r#"{
        "op": "two",
        "a": 1.0,
        "b": 2.0
    }"#;

    let message: Message = serde_json::from_str(data)?;
    process_message(&message);

    let data = r#"{
        "op": "42",
        "i": 1.0,
        "j": 2.0
    }"#;

    let message: Message = serde_json::from_str(data)?;
    process_message(&message);
    Ok(())
}

Standard Output
Processing a : One { x: 1.0, y: 2.0 }
Processing a : Two { a: 1.0, b: 2.0 }

Standard Error
Error: Error("unknown variant `42`, expected `one` or `two`", line: 2, column: 18)