The difference between Converter and MemberConverter properties of Json.NET's JsonProperty

Question

The JsonProperty class returned by DefaultContractResolver.CreateProperty has two properties about converter, Converter and Memb

Answer 1

I've opened an issue about the docs on this here github.com/JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json/issues/363.

But one obvious difference between them (obvious from the source code, that is) is that Converter is only used when serializing and MemberConverter only when deserializing. I don't know if that's the full story though, and the naming does not say much.

Answer 2

It would seem that NS.Json supports overridable converters; presumably this is so that each individual property doesn't have to specify a JsonConverter, but they may override it if need be.

Hints can be found in the source:

From DefaultContractResolver.cs, line 1254:

private void SetPropertySettingsFromAttributes(JsonProperty property, object attributeProvider, string name, Type declaringType, MemberSerialization memberSerialization, out bool allowNonPublicAccess)
{
    ...
    // resolve converter for property
    // the class type might have a converter but the property converter takes presidence
    property.Converter = JsonTypeReflector.GetJsonConverter(attributeProvider);
    property.MemberConverter = JsonTypeReflector.GetJsonConverter(attributeProvider);

And from JsonSerializerInternalReader.cs, line 348:

    private JsonConverter GetConverter(JsonContract contract, JsonConverter memberConverter, JsonContainerContract containerContract, JsonProperty containerProperty)
    {
        JsonConverter converter = null;
        if (memberConverter != null)
        {
            // member attribute converter
            converter = memberConverter;
        }
        else if (containerProperty != null && containerProperty.ItemConverter != null)
        {
            converter = containerProperty.ItemConverter;
        }
        else if (containerContract != null && containerContract.ItemConverter != null)
        {
            converter = containerContract.ItemConverter;
        }
        else if (contract != null)
        {
            JsonConverter matchingConverter;
            if (contract.Converter != null)
                // class attribute converter
                converter = contract.Converter;
            else if ((matchingConverter = Serializer.GetMatchingConverter(contract.UnderlyingType)) != null)
                // passed in converters
                converter = matchingConverter;
            else if (contract.InternalConverter != null)
                // internally specified converter
                converter = contract.InternalConverter;
        }
        return converter;
    }