Question

I would like to keep a custom configuration file for my app and JSON seems like an appropriate format*.

I know that there are JSON libraries for .NET, but I couldn’t find a good comparative review of them. Also, my app needs to run on mono, so it’s even harder to find out which library to use.

Here’s what I’ve found:

• JSON.NET
• JSONSharp

I remember reading that there is a built-in way to (de)serialize JSON as well, but I don’t recall what it is.

What library would be easiest to use in mono on linux? Speed isn’t critical, as the data will be small.

*Since the app runs on a headless linux box, I need to use the command line and would like to keep typing down to a minimum, so I ruled out XML. Also, I couldn’t find any library to work with INF files, I’m not familiar with standard linux config file formats, and JSON is powerful.

Answer 1

The DataContractJsonSerializer can handle JSON serialization but it’s not as powerful as some of the libraries for example it has no Parse method.

This might be a way to do it without libraries as I beleive Mono has implemented this class.

To get more readable JSON markup your class with attributes:

[DataContract]
public class SomeJsonyThing
{
    [DataMember(Name="my_element")]
    public string MyElement { get; set; }

    [DataMember(Name="my_nested_thing")]
    public object MyNestedThing { get; set;}
}