Question

When using the Microsoft namespaces System.Web.Helpers and System.Web.Script.Serialization I expected that the Microsoft serializer played well with Microsofts dynamic JSON object. It turns out that this was a naive assumption. The JavaScriptSerializer serializes the object to “{}”. What is the recommended way for this seemingly trivial task?

     dynamic obj = new DynamicJsonObject(new Dictionary<string,object>());
     obj.FirstName = "Henry";
     obj.LastName = "Ford";
     JavaScriptSerializer jsc = new JavaScriptSerializer();
     string str = jsc.Serialize( obj );
     Assert.AreNotEqual(str, "{}"); // Does not fail

Answer 1

Try Json.Net

dynamic obj = new DynamicJsonObject(new Dictionary<string,object>());
obj.FirstName = "Henry";
obj.LastName = "Ford";
string str = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(obj);

It will do it successfully. You can use it with anonymous classes

string s = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new {FirstName="Henry",LastName="Ford"});

and ExpandoObjects too

dynamic obj = new ExpandoObject();
obj.FirstName = "Henry";
obj.LastName = "Ford";
string s = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(obj);

Deserialization to dynamic objects is also possible

dynamic obj2 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(@"{""FirstName"":""Henry"",""LastName"":""Ford""}");
Console.WriteLine(obj2.FirstName + " " + obj2.LastName);