Deserialize a JSON array as Dictionary with JSON.Net - json

Question

I've one part of my JSON that looks like this:
Like you can see, in the JSON, the temperature "dictionary", is in fact a list of list of 2 element.
The first element is a timestamp, the second the temperature. Not sure why the provider of the service did it like this, but I don't really have the choice, I must do with it.
But in my C# object, I would like to have this as a dictionary, with timestamp as the key, and temperature as the value.
Is this possible?
//note, I've a custom converter that converts from long to DateTime
public Dictionary<DateTime, double> Temperature { get; set; }
and deserializing like this:
JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<WeatherPredictionDay>>(content, new EpochConverter());

Answer 1

Yes, this can be done with a custom JsonConverter like this:
class TemperatureArrayConverter : JsonConverter
{
public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
{
return (objectType == typeof(Dictionary<DateTime, double>));
}
public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
JArray ja = JArray.Load(reader);
var dict = new Dictionary<DateTime, double>();
foreach (JArray item in ja)
{
var key = item[0].ToObject<DateTime>(serializer);
var val = item[1].ToObject<double>(serializer);
dict.Add(key, val);
}
return dict;
}
public override bool CanWrite
{
get { return false; }
}
public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
{
throw new NotImplementedException();
}
}
To use it, just mark your Temperature property with a [JsonConverter] attribute like this:
[JsonConverter(typeof(TemperatureArrayConverter))]
public Dictionary<DateTime, double> Temperature { get; set; }
Note: the above converter as written is intended to work with your existing EpochConverter to convert the timestamp values into DateTimes for the dictionary keys.
Here is a working demo: https://dotnetfiddle.net/TdxYjj