Question

I am using json.net(newtonsoft) and I want to build a json request but I have 2 different dictionaries and not sure how to join them.

   Dictionary<string, HttpStatusCode> code = new Dictionary<string, HttpStatusCode>();
   code.Add("Message", statusCode);

Dictionary<string, IErrorInfo> modelState = new Dictionary<string, IErrorInfo>();
// some code to add to this modelState

Edit

IErrorInfo just has some properties

public interface IErrorInfo
    {
        SeverityType SeverityType { get; set; }
        ValidationType ValidationType { get; set; }
        string Msg { get; set; }
    }

The result I trying to go for is something like this

{
  "Message": 400, // want this to be text but not sure how to do that yet (see below)
  "DbError":{
        "SeverityType":3,
        "ValidationType":2,
        "Msg":"A database error has occurred please try again."
        }
}

I am basically trying to achieve this.

HttpError and Model Validation

For model validation, you can pass the model state to CreateErrorResponse, to include the validation errors in the response:

public HttpResponseMessage PostProduct(Product item)
{
    if (!ModelState.IsValid)
    {
        return Request.CreateErrorResponse(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, ModelState);
    }

    // Implementation not shown...
}

This example might return the following response:

HTTP/1.1 400 Bad Request
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Content-Length: 320

{
  "Message": "The request is invalid.",
  "ModelState": {
    "item": [
      "Required property 'Name' not found in JSON. Path '', line 1, position 14."
    ],
    "item.Name": [
      "The Name field is required."
    ],
    "item.Price": [
      "The field Price must be between 0 and 999."
    ]
  }
}

The reason why I am not using this built in method is because I have a separate built in class library that has all my business logic in it. I want to keep it so that it has no dependency on web stuff or mvc stuff(like modelState).

This is why I created my own sort of model state with a bit of extra stuff in it.

Answer 1

You should be able to just use one Dictionary and add items from both of your dictionaries into this dictionary. Json.NET should serialize it all like you’re expecting.