JSON.net parsing of dynamic JSON - json

Question

I have JSON that looks like this:
{
"status": {
"code": 0,
"message": "OK"
},
"data": {
"_idtype": "cusip",
"_id": "00768Y883",
"api": {
"_name": "PortfolioBreakdownsRaw",
"PortfolioDate": "2015-10-12",
"GlobalBondSuperSectorLongSalePositionBreakdown": [
{
"Name": "Municipal",
"Value": "0.57842"
},
{
"Name": "Corporate",
"Value": "1.79649"
},
{
"Name": "Securitized",
"Value": "5.29493"
},
{
"Name": "Cash & Equivalents",
"Value": "166.20776"
}
],
"GlobalBondSuperSectorShortSalePositionBreakdown": [
{
"Name": "Government",
"Value": "0.90557"
}
]
}
}
}
I am able to get the api portion of the response easily:
var jObject = JObject.Parse(json);
var api = jObject["data"]["api"];
From here, I don't what if any arrays will be included in the response. The ultimate goal will be to create a parser that will be able to get the array names (GlobalBondSuperSectorShortSalePositionBreakdown) and as many rows of key-value pairs that it may contain, without first knowing the names such as (GlobalBondSuperSectorShortSalePositionBreakdown) beforehand.
I can't seem to find a good way to loop through the object, determine there are arrays at the api level and then iterate through those to get the values.
Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Here's an example. In this code, the api variable holds a JObject, so we can iterate over its properties. From there, we look at the Type of each property value to see if it is an array or not. If it is, then we can iterate over that array to get the JObjects within it, and extract the Name and Value values that we expect to find there. Does this help?
var jObject = JObject.Parse(json);
var api = jObject["data"]["api"];
foreach (JProperty prop in api.Children<JProperty>())
{
JToken value = prop.Value;
if (value.Type == JTokenType.Array)
{
Console.WriteLine(prop.Name + ": ");
foreach (JObject jo in value.Children<JObject>())
{
Console.WriteLine(" " + jo["Name"] + ": " + jo["Value"]);
}
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine(prop.Name + ": " + value);
}
}
Output:
_name: PortfolioBreakdownsRaw
PortfolioDate: 2015-10-12
GlobalBondSuperSectorLongSalePositionBreakdown:
Municipal: 0.57842
Corporate: 1.79649
Securitized: 5.29493
Cash & Equivalents: 166.20776
GlobalBondSuperSectorShortSalePositionBreakdown:
Government: 0.90557
Fiddle: https://dotnetfiddle.net/XyoXQy

Answer 2

With Linq you can play pretty nice with Json.net:
Here is an easily readable version of the chunk of code that will create two dictionaries out of the JArray properties under the api element:
var api = jObject["data"]["api"];
var arrays = api.Cast<JProperty>().Where(o => o.Value.Type == JTokenType.Array).Select(token => token.Value).ToArray();
var dictionaries = new List<Dictionary<string, string>>();
foreach (var array in arrays)
{
var dictionary = array.ToDictionary(token => token["Name"].Value<string>(), token => token["Value"].Value<string>());
dictionaries.Add(dictionary);
}
alternative:
The same thing, but a shorter, more compact version :
var api = jObject["data"]["api"];
var dictionaries = api
.Cast<JProperty>()
.Where(o => o.Value.Type == JTokenType.Array)
.Select(token => token.Value)
.Select(array => array.ToDictionary(token => token["Name"].Value<string>(), token => token["Value"].Value<string>()));