Question

I have a JSON string below:

{
  "data": [
    {
      //data for first
    }, 
    {
      //data for second
    }, 
    {
      //data for third
    }, 
  ]
}

From this JSON string, I would like to retrieve the number of objects within the "data" element, which in this case, would be 3.

What would be the best approach to accomplish this? I used the .Length property, but that returned a number that I did not expect.

I am using C#.

Answer 1

Since it’s a string in C# you need to parse it into something you can use first. Here’s a simple way using framework classes.

//obj is your JSON string

var serializer = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();
Dictionary<string,object> csObj = 
    serializer.Deserialize<Dictionary<string,object>>(obj);
int length = ((ArrayList)csObj["data"]).Count; 

When given a generic data structure, JavaScriptSerializer turns arrays into ArrayLists.