Deserializing JSON to C# - Trying to turn JSON associative array into Dictionary

Question

I have this JSON:

{
    \"AutoRefreshEnabled\" : false,
    \"AutoRefreshInterval\" : 1,
    \"AutoCycleEnabled\" : false,
    \"AutoCycleInterval\" : 1,
            


        

Answer 1

If you want the Tabs property to be a Dictionary<string, string> then your representation in JSON is incorrect. Currently, you have:

"Tabs" : [
    "RadTab_Home",
    "Dashboard"
],

And it should be a string[]. If you want a mapping (i.e. Dictionary<string, string>), then you need a key to associate with the values, and therefore, a different representation in JSON:

"Tabs" : [
    { "key1" : "RadTab_Home" },
    { "key2" : "Dashboard" }
],

With this, you can definitely create a Dictionary<string, string>, as you would have a key to associate with the values. The key would be to create a class, like so:

// NOTE: You can use POCO DataContract serialization for this type.
[DataContract]
public class Pair
{
    [DataMember]
    public string Key { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

And then define your Tabs property like so:

[DataMember]
public Pair[] Tabs { get; set; }

Which you can easily convert to a Dictionary<string, string> using LINQ:

// Deserialized instance.
MyClass instance = ...;

// Map
IDictionary<string, string> tabsMap = instance.Tabs.
    ToDictionary(p => p.Key, p => p.Value);

You could add it as a method on your class, but that's a design decision for you to make (I didn't add it to the class because I assume this is a data-transfer object).