Question

Json.Net typically serializes a Dictionary<k,v> into a collection;

"MyDict": {
  "Apples": {
    "Taste": 1341181398,
    "Title": "Granny Smith",
  },
  "Oranges": {
    "Taste": 9999999999,
    "Title": "Coxes Pippin",
  },
 }

Which is great. And from looking around on SO it seems to be what most people want. However, in this particular case, I want to serialize between my Dictionary<k,v> and the Array format instead;

"MyDict": [
    "k": "Apples",
    "v": {
        "Taste": 1341181398,
        "Title": "Granny Smith",
    }
  },
    "k:": "Oranges",
    "v:": {
        "Taste": 9999999999,
        "Title": "Coxes Pippin",
    }
  },
]

Is there an easy way to do this with my existing field type? Is there an attribute I can annotate for instance?

Answer 1

Ah, it turns out this is as straightforward as I’d hoped. My Dictionary<k,v> is subclassed already and I found that I can annotate it with [JsonArrayAttribute]. That gives me exactly the format I need;

"MyDict": [
  {
    "Key": "Apples",
    "Value": {
        "Taste": 1341181398,
        "Title": "Granny Smith",
    }
  },
  {
    "Key:": "Oranges",
    "Value:": {
        "Taste": 9999999999,
        "Title": "Coxes Pippin",
    }
  },
]