Question

Getting a parser error when trying to serialize a ulong array, looks like the Json.NET library isnt checking if the integer is signed or unsigned; any one know of a workaround for this? or any other .NET Json library that can handle unsigned int’s?

*EDIT: code below; *
It serializes fine, but when its deserializing it throws an error; Looks like it doesnt cater for the unsigned int from looking at the stack trace;

NewTonsoft.Json.JsonReaderException : {"JSON integer 18446744073709551615 is too large or small for an Int64."}

Value was either too large or too small for an Int64.
   at System.Number.ParseInt64(String value, NumberStyles options, NumberFormatInfo numfmt)
   at System.Convert.ToInt64(String value, IFormatProvider provider)
   at Newtonsoft.Json.JsonTextReader.ParseNumber() in d:\Development\Releases\Json\Working\Src\Newtonsoft.Json\JsonTextReader.cs:line 1360

   class Program
        {
            static void Main(string[] args)
            {
                string output = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new ulong[] {ulong.MinValue, 20, 21, 22, ulong.MaxValue});
                Console.WriteLine(output);

                ulong[] array = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<ulong[]>(output);
                Console.WriteLine(array);

                Console.ReadLine();
            }
        }

Answer 1

You’re right, JSON.Net doesn’t handle values larger than long.MaxValue in this case.

I didn’t find any way to modify that behavior, except by modifying the source code of the library. As a workaround, you could deserialize it as decimal[] and then convert that into ulong[].