Question

I need to pass javascript object to ASP.NET MVC and I’m thinking do it like this:

var p = { account:'123', page:'item' }; 
var message = escape(p.toSource());
// pass message to action method

That produces something like this (unescaped for readability):

({account:"123", page:"item"})

And in ASP.NET MVC I’m trying to deserialize it and fail.
First, DataContractJsonSerializer was complaining about parenthesis, no problem with that, removed before passing:

{account:"123", page:"item"}

Then it complained about a instead of “, so I’ve tried to serialize datacontract using it, and got:

{"account":"123", "page":"item"}

So, question is, can i use something in ASP.NET MVC, that would work with javascripts toSource format, or am I doing it from scratch wrong?

Answer 1

So, question is, can i use something in ASP.NET MVC, that would work
with javascripts toSource format, or am I doing it from scratch wrong?

The DataContractJsonSerializer class is pretty strict in terms of JSON format and it adheres to the specification. For example:

{account:"123", page:"item"}

is invalid JSON according to the specification. You must put double quotes around property names. You could use JSON.stringify in order to produce valid JSON:

var p = { account:'123', page:'item' }; 
var message = JSON.stringify(p);

which will produce {"account":"123","page":"item"} which is now valid JSON. The JSON.stringify function is natively built into modern browsers and if you want to support legacy browsers you could include json2.js into your page.

This being said, you could use the less strict JavaScriptSerializer class, or Json.NET which will accept your invalid JSON string:

public class MyModel
{
    public string Account { get; set; }
    public string Page { get; set; }
}

class Program
{
    static void Main()
    {
        var json = "{account:\"123\", page:\"item\"}";
        var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
        var model = serializer.Deserialize<MyModel>(json);
        Console.WriteLine("account = {0}, page = {1}", model.Account, model.Page);
    }
}

And this being said I don’t know why you are deserializing manually the JSON instead of relying on the built in JsonValueProviderFactory:

[HttpPost]
public ActionResult MyAction(MyModel model)
{
    ...
}

and to invoke from javascript using AJAX:

$.ajax({
    url: '@Url.Action("MyAction", "Home")',
    type: 'POST',
    contentType: 'application/json',
    data: JSON.stringify({ account: "123", page: "item" }),
    success: function(result) {
        // TODO: process the results
    }
});

See, now you now longer have to worry about any manual serialization/deserialization. Everything is handled by the framework for you.