Question

In my ASP.net C# code, I have an IEnumerable container filled with objects of an anonymous type (which is loosely based on data from SQL).

Suppose that my code looks something like this:

var uics = entities.getData()
    .Select(x => new
        {
            id = x.id
            name = x.name
            age = x.age
        });
return Json(uics); //Serialize JSON in ASP.net MVC 3

This is very simple. When I serialize this to JavaScript, I get an array of objects, each having fields id, name, and age.

What I would like to do is serialize this data to a JavaScript Object with id as the index, with each object referenced by its index having fields name and age.

How can I accomplish this.

Answer 1

You can create an IDictionary and use it as the result of the action:

var uics = entities.getData()
    .ToDictionary(x => x.id, x => new { x.name, x.age });

return Json(uics); //Serialize JSON in ASP.net MVC 3

There is no need to explicitly specify the property names for the anonymous type used here, because the compiler defaults those to the name of the property used to provide a value (which in both cases here is the same).