Convert Json string with different property names depending on query

Question

I have a string of Json which looks like this:

    {"Linkin Park":{"mbid_id":"f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419","artistbackground":
[{"id":"34862","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4fcd2d8e4764f.jpg",
"likes":"4"},{"id":"3953","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4de522dac2c13.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"3954","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4de523586c57e.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"4251","url":"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4dea53983f4cf.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"30196","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4fabb53ba80a3.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"52251","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-5058a071d9782.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"52252","url":"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-5058a071d9f41.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"52254","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-5058a0ebd0350.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"52255","url":"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-5058a0ebd098b.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"63902","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-50c2f127eeae6.jpg","likes":"1"},{"id":"3951","url":"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4de521f409aa2.jpg","likes":"0"},{"id":"3952","url":
"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4de5225cdd595.jpg","likes":"0"},
{"id":"28038","url":"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-4f8ecbd3c004d.jpg","likes":"0"},{"id":"88261","url":"http://assets.fanart.tv/fanart/music/f59c5520-5f46-4d2c-b2c4-822eabf53419/artistbackground/linkin-park-51d1d122f3029.jpg","likes":"0"}]}}

If you did have the time to read all of that, you might see my problem. There are Json nodes which change name depending on what query I send. This time I sent "Linkin Park", and I got nodes named Linkin park. If I then were to send a query of Madonna I would end up with nodes called Madonna.

How would you go about de-serializing this into classes?

Answer 1

You have a few options:

1. Dictionary
2. dynamic
3. JObject, and then deserialize to strongly-typed one node down (assuming the subtree is static in its structure and naming) (this is based on Newtonsoft.JSON)

What library are you using for JSON deserialization?

Example of #1 using Json.NET:

var json = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, StronglyTyped>>(jsonStr);
var data = json.Values.FirstOrDefault();

Example of #3 using Json.NET:

var json    = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<JObject>(jsonStr);
var topProp = json.Properties().FirstOrDefault().Name;
var data    = json[topProp].ToObject<StronglyTyped>();

Answer 2

Since you know the query, the simplest solution would be to replace {"%QUERY%":{ with {"MyCommonDeserializableClass":{ before deserializing the string. :-)

But you should make sure that the JSON contains only one object like this. Logically it seems they return the artist name because several artists may match the query.