Question

I have the following code which serialize an array to json:

Dim col1 As New ArrayList
Dim col2 As New ArrayList

objJSONStringBuilder = New StringBuilder()
objSQLConnection = New SqlConnection(System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.AppSettings("connString"))

objSQLCommand = New SqlCommand("select col1, col2 from table1", objSQLConnection)

objSQLCommand.Connection.Open()
objSQLDataReader = objSQLCommand.ExecuteReader()

While objSQLDataReader.Read()
    col1.Add(objSQLDataReader("col1"))
End While

objSQLDataReader.Close()
objSQLCommand.Connection.Close()

Dim serializer As New JavaScriptSerializer()
Dim arrayJson As String = serializer.Serialize(col1)

Return arrayJson

which returns

[
    "dept1",
    "dept2",
    "dept3",
    "dept4",
    "dept5",
    "dept6"
]

How do I get it to return this instead?

the second array col2 on it’s own would return:

[
    {"department_name":"dept1"},
    {"department_name":"dept2"},
    {"department_name":"dept3"},
    {"department_name":"dept4"},
    {"department_name":"dept5"},
    {"department_name":"dept6"}
]

Answer 1

try something like this:

col1.Add(new { department_name = objSQLDataReader("col1")});