How can I beautify JSON for display in a TextBox?

Question

How can I beautify JSON with C#? I want to print the result in a TextBox control.

Is it possible to use JavaScriptSerializer for this, or should I use JSON.net? Un

Answer 1

With JSON.Net you can beautify the output with a specific formatting.

Demo on dotnetfiddle.

Code

public class Product
{
    public string Name {get; set;}
    public DateTime Expiry {get; set;}
    public string[] Sizes {get; set;}
}

public void Main()
{
    Product product = new Product();
    product.Name = "Apple";
    product.Expiry = new DateTime(2008, 12, 28);
    product.Sizes = new string[] { "Small" };

    string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(product, Formatting.None);
    Console.WriteLine(json);
    json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(product, Formatting.Indented);
    Console.WriteLine(json);
}

Output

{"Name":"Apple","Expiry":"2008-12-28T00:00:00","Sizes":["Small"]}
{
  "Name": "Apple",
  "Expiry": "2008-12-28T00:00:00",
  "Sizes": [
    "Small"
  ]
}

Answer 2

Bit late to this party, but you can beautify (or minify) Json without deserialization using json.NET:

JToken parsedJson = JToken.Parse(jsonString);
var beautified = parsedJson.ToString(Formatting.Indented);
var minified = parsedJson.ToString(Formatting.None);

Answer 3

ShouldSerializeContractResolver.cs

public class ShouldSerializeContractResolver : DefaultContractResolver
    {
        public static readonly ShouldSerializeContractResolver Instance = new ShouldSerializeContractResolver();

        protected override JsonProperty CreateProperty(MemberInfo member, MemberSerialization memberSerialization)
        {
            JsonProperty property = base.CreateProperty(member, memberSerialization);
            return property;
        }
    }

 var beautifyJson= Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(data, new JsonSerializerSettings()
            {
                ContractResolver = ShouldSerializeContractResolver.Instance,
                NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore,
                Formatting = Formatting.Indented
            });

you can beautify json with above code