AppSettings Deserialize to an unknown or dynamic class - json

Question

I'm trying to set up a series of complex app settings in a separate settings.json file - I won't go into detail as to why...
So I have a JSON file which looks like this:
{
"Website": {
"Name": "Website Name",
"api_key": "----------",
"domain": "-----------"
},
"Pages": {
"Index": {
"Name": "Index",
"Widgets": {
"BestSellers": {
"Name": "BestSellers",
"Type": "ProductCollection",
"Data": {
"Limit": "8",
"Sort": {
"SortType": 3
},
"GetFullProducts": true,
"GroupVariations": false
}
}
}
}
}
}
The first section "Website" simply fetches string settings, all working fine.
The section section "Pages" is more complicated. I have classes that look like this:
public class PageSettings
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public Dictionary<String, Widget> Widgets { get; set; }
public class Widget
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Type { get; set; }
public Dictionary<String, object> Data { get; set; } // THIS IS THE PROPERTY THIS QUESTION IS ABOUT
}
}
I use this code to deserialise the above:
IConfigurationSection pagessection = root.GetSection("Pages");
if (pagessection.Exists())
{
_Pages = new Dictionary<String, PageSettings>();
pagessection.Bind(_Pages);
}
With the JSON File exactly as above, this will fail. For some reason, the nested Object Sort in the Data property cannot be deserialised as Object:
"Sort": {
"SortType": 3
}
If I take the above nested object out then all the code so far will work. However, there are use cases where I need that nested object.
I have tried using ExpandoObject which is very cool and clever, but because it expects KeyValuePairs, it then only serialises the nested object in Data, ignoring the simple properties Limit, GetFullroduct etc.
So what I need is a form of ExpandoObject which can also be ExpandoString or something?!
Alternatively... I need to be able to get the Data property from the settings.json file in String form and explicitly deserialise it using JsonConvert.Deserialize at the point of use, because at that point I can declare the proper class that it needs to be deserialised to, but i can't seem to find a way to get the IConfigurationSection code to get the value as a string, rather than a JSON object.

Answer 1

I can't find a solution to this, the nested object breaks everything I have tried.
The helpful comment from #Fei Han has helped a little in highlighting the flexibility of the JObject class, so the solution I have come to is this:
The complex class has to be stored as an HTML encoded string in the settings.json file:
"Data": "{"Limit": "8","GetFullProducts":true,"GroupVariations":true, "Sort": {"SortType": 3}}"
it has to be HTMLEncoded because it is the only way I can find to make the ConfigurationBuilder treat it as a string so that I can cast it correctly later.
The corresponding Class for this now has these properties:
public string ModelString { get; set; }
public Newtonsoft.Json.Linq.JObject Model
{
get
{
string s = ModelString.HtmlDecode();
if (s.EmptyStr())
{
return new JObject();
} else {
return JObject.Parse(s);
}
}
}
From this I am able to easily cast my Data to the eventually required class using .ToObject<MyObject>()
For some reason, this works. I am able to deserialise the string to a JObject in this method, but not directly using the Bind command on IConfigurationSection.
If anyone has any tips on why Bind won't do it, that'd be interesting!