\ escape character passed as json in PutAsJsonAsync

Question

I am trying to send a PUT request to update some data. In Fiddler in the Inspectors > Text View the data is shown as following :

"{\"site\":[{\"technologyId\":1,\"isActive\":1},{\"technologyId\":2,\"isActive\":1},{\"technologyId\":3,\"isActive\":1},{\"technologyId\":4,\"isActive\":1}]}"  

If I open the jsonData in TextViewer while debugging it shows the following:

{"site":[{"technologyId":1,"isActive":1},{"technologyId":2,"isActive":1},{"technologyId":3,"isActive":1},{"technologyId":4,"isActive":1}]}

I thought this is what is passed to the server when I passed jsonData in PutAsJsonAsync.

In fiddler the response comes back as 500 Internal Server Error and if I click on TextView it shows {"error":"Error: invalid json"}. To my understanding the \ is escape character for " in C# and should not be passed. I am not sure how to resolve this

static void Main()
{
    RunAsync().Wait();
}

static async Task RunAsync()
{
    using (var client = new HttpClient())
    {
        Uri siteTechUpdateUrl = new Uri("http://xyz/api/1234");
        // HTTP PUT
        // Update site# 16839 Technologies

        var collection = new List<SiteTechnology>();
        collection.Add(new SiteTechnology() { technologyId = 1, isActive = 1 });
        collection.Add(new SiteTechnology() { technologyId = 2, isActive = 1 });
        collection.Add(new SiteTechnology() { technologyId = 3, isActive = 1 });
        collection.Add(new SiteTechnology() { technologyId = 4, isActive = 1 });
        dynamic siteTechs= new
        {
            site = collection
        };
        string jsonData = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(siteTechs);  
        // jsonData value "{\"site\":[{\"technologyId\":1,\"isActive\":1},{\"technologyId\":2,\"isActive\":1},{\"technologyId\":3,\"isActive\":1},{\"technologyId\":4,\"isActive\":1}]}"               
        HttpResponseMessage response2 = await client.PutAsJsonAsync(siteTechUpdateUrl, jsonData);

        if (response2.IsSuccessStatusCode)
        {
            Console.ReadLine();
        }
    }
}

class SiteTechnology
{
    public int technologyId;
    public int isActive;
}

Answer 1

You're serializing it to a string, and then sending the string as JSON.

Instead of:

client.PutAsJsonAsync(siteTechUpdateUrl, jsonData);

try:

client.PutAsJsonAsync(siteTechUpdateUrl, siteTechs);