Question

I have this JSON:

{
    "AutoRefreshEnabled" : false,
    "AutoRefreshInterval" : 1,
    "AutoCycleEnabled" : false,
    "AutoCycleInterval" : 1,
    "Tabs" : {
        "RadTab_Home",
        "Dashboard"
    },
    "CommandName" : "Update Global Settings"
}

I’m trying to store it in this class, but I am not sure how to handle the embedded Tabs object. There may be an arbitrary number of tabs greater than 0 (so 1+, the first one’s key always being RadTab_Home). Tabs shouldn’t be a string[]. I want it to be a Dictionary<string, string>, but I am unsure how to express that.

[DataContract]
public class GlobalSettingsJSON
{
    private static readonly ILog Logger = 
        LogManager.GetLogger(MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);

    public GlobalSettingsJSON() { }

    public GlobalSettingsJSON(string commandName, string autoRefreshEnabled, 
        string autoRefreshInterval, string autoCycleEnabled, 
        string autoCycleInterval, Dictionary<string, string> tabs)
    {
        Logger.InfoFormat("Command Name: {0}, DockID: {1}, " +
            "AutoRefreshEnabled: {2}, AutoRefreshInterval: {3}, " +
            "AutoCycleEnabled: {4}, AutoCycleInterval: {5}",
            commandName, autoRefreshEnabled, autoRefreshInterval, 
            autoCycleEnabled, autoCycleInterval);

        CommandName = commandName;
        AutoRefreshEnabled = autoRefreshEnabled;
        AutoRefreshInterval = autoRefreshInterval;
        AutoCycleEnabled = autoCycleEnabled;
        AutoCycleInterval = autoCycleInterval;
        Tabs = tabs;
    }

    [DataMember(Name = "CommandName")]
    public string CommandName { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "AutoRefreshEnabled")]
    public string AutoRefreshEnabled { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "AutoRefreshInterval")]
    public string AutoRefreshInterval { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "AutoCycleEnabled")]
    public string AutoCycleEnabled { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "AutoCycleInterval")]
    public string AutoCycleInterval { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name = "Tabs")]
    public Dictionary<string, string> Tabs { get; set; }
}

EDIT: Tabs does not return any data now, but no error is thrown.
EDIT: DataContractJsonSerializer does not support deserializing to a dictionary. JSON.net, however, does!
EDIT: Code worked perfectly using Newtonsoft’s JSON deserializer.

Answer 1

If you want the Tabs property to be a Dictionary<string, string> then your representation in JSON is incorrect. Currently, you have:

"Tabs" : [
    "RadTab_Home",
    "Dashboard"
],

And it should be a string[]. If you want a mapping (i.e. Dictionary<string, string>), then you need a key to associate with the values, and therefore, a different representation in JSON:

"Tabs" : [
    { "key1" : "RadTab_Home" },
    { "key2" : "Dashboard" }
],

With this, you can definitely create a Dictionary<string, string>, as you would have a key to associate with the values. The key would be to create a class, like so:

// NOTE: You can use POCO DataContract serialization for this type.
[DataContract]
public class Pair
{
    [DataMember]
    public string Key { get; set; }

    [DataMember]
    public string Value { get; set; }
}

And then define your Tabs property like so:

[DataMember]
public Pair[] Tabs { get; set; }

Which you can easily convert to a Dictionary<string, string> using LINQ:

// Deserialized instance.
MyClass instance = ...;

// Map
IDictionary<string, string> tabsMap = instance.Tabs.
    ToDictionary(p => p.Key, p => p.Value);

You could add it as a method on your class, but that’s a design decision for you to make (I didn’t add it to the class because I assume this is a data-transfer object).