Question

I have some JSON data that looks like this:

{
    "data":
    [{
        "name":"John Smith",
        "id":"12345"
    }]
}

I have a pair of serializeable classes like so:

<Serializable()> _
Public Class User
    Private _name As String
    Private _id As String

    Public Property name() As String
        Get
            Return _name
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _name = value
        End Set
    End Property

    Public Property id() As String
        Get
            Return _id
        End Get
        Set(ByVal value As String)
            _id = value
        End Set
    End Property
End Class

<Serializable()>
Public Class UserData
    Private _data As List(Of User)

    Public Property data() As List(Of User)
        Get
            Return (_data)
        End Get

        Set(ByVal value As List(Of User))
            _data = value
        End Set
    End Property

End Class

When I try to deserialize as an object:

Dim serializer As New JavaScriptSerializer()
Dim userResult As Object = serializer.DeserializeObject(json)

I get one root object with key “data”, and value another object with 2 children, with keys “name” and “id”, and the appropriate values one might expect. But when I try to cast that object to my UserData type, it returns Nothing. I had this code working at some point, but now that I am returning to it and attempting to use it again, it seems some code rot has set in and it has stopped working.

Here is how I am attempting to get the deserialized data as a UserData object:

Dim userResult As UserData = TryCast(serializer.DeserializeObject(json), UserData)

Answer 1

I was able to fix this issue by changing

Dim userResult As UserData = TryCast(serializer.DeserializeObject(json), UserData)

to

Dim userResult As UserData = serializer.Deserialize(Of UserData)(json)

Not exactly sure what the functional difference here is, but that got me the result i wanted.