Using StackService.Text and JSON for lists of objects

Question

Any help will be appreciated here.

I'm trying to use StackService. Text and JSON in order to get a list of objects, that each object contains a list.

Here is the definition of the classes:

[DataContract]
public class GroupingList
{
    [DataMember(Name = "id")]
    public int Id
    {
        get; set;
    }
    [DataMember(Name = "name")]
    public string Name
    {
        get; set;
    }
    [DataMember(Name = "form_field")]
    public string FormField
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    [DataMember(Name = "groups")]
    public List<GroupingOptions> Groups
    {
        get; set;
    }
}

[DataContract]
public class GroupingOptions
{
    [DataMember(Name = "bit")]
    public string Bit
    {
        get; set;
    }
    [DataMember(Name = "name")]
    public string Name
    {
        get; set;
    }
    [DataMember(Name = "display_order")]
    public string DisplayOrder
    {
        get; set;
    }
    [DataMember(Name = "subscribers")]
    public int Subscribers
    {
        get; set;
    }
}

I'm using the 'PostJsonToUrl()' method, and receiving the following string as a return result:

"\n[{\"id\":14101,\"name\":\"Accounting1\",\"form_field\":\"hidden\",\"display_order\":\"0\",\"groups\":[{\"bit\":\"1\",\"name\":\"Interest\",\"display_order\":\"1\",\"subscribers\":null},{\"bit\":\"2\",\"name\":\"Register\",\"display_order\":\"2\",\"subscribers\":null}]}]"

Now, when I'm trying to call the FromJson(List<GroupingList>) method, I'm getting the following exception:

Type definitions should start with a '{', expecting serialized type 'GroupingList', got string starting with: 
[{"id":14101,"name":"Accounting1","form_field":"h

Can anyone direct me please whether this issue is related to the definition of the 'GroupingList' and 'GroupingOptions' classes? The return result of 'PostJsonToUrl()' is a list (with one entry in this case) that contain another list (with two items), so I don't understand why calling FromJson(List) fails.

Many thanks

Answer 1

The problem is \n symbol at the begining of the string. You can remove it first, and then desirialize GroupingList.

string result = "\n[{\"id\":14101,\"name\":\"Accounting1\",\"form_field\":\"hidden\",\"display_order\":\"0\",\"groups\":[{\"bit\":\"1\",\"name\":\"Interest\",\"display_order\":\"1\",\"subscribers\":0},{\"bit\":\"2\",\"name\":\"Register\",\"display_order\":\"2\",\"subscribers\":0}]}]";
result = result.Trim();
List<GroupingList> list = result.FromJson<List<GroupingList>>();