Deserializing JSON string to C# - json

Question

I have a JSON array, which looks like this:
{[
{
"personnelId": 201,
"occupationIds": [
4,
5
]
},
{
"personnelId": 202,
"occupationIds": [
5
]
}
]}
I'm receiving this string through a JObject in my ASP.NET Web API controller:
var jPersonnelAndOccupationIds = json["personnelAndOccupationIds"];
I've had success deserialiizing various data structures through JObject but this keeps giving a RuntimeBinderException, what data structure would be best suited for that JSON string, I've tried a lot of thing, this IMO is the most suitable List<PersonnelOccupationsVm> where PersonnelOccupationsVm looks like this:
public class PersonnelOccupationsVm
{
public long personnelId { get; set; }
public List<long> occupationIds { get; set; }
}
which I desrialize like this:
var personnelIdsAndOccupationsKvp = jPersonnelAndOccupationIds.ToObject(new List<PersonnelOccupationsVm>());
and I've tried
System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer().Deserialize<List<PersonnelOccupationsVm>>(jPersonnelAndOccupationIds);
neither works. any ideas?
EDIT
As requested in the comments, I'm making my call like this (angular):
$http({
method: 'POST',
url: '/api/EnterprisePersonnelApi/SubmitOcupationalPersonnel/',
data: JSON.stringify({ enterpriseId: enterpriseId, positionId: positionId,personnelAndOccupationIds: personnelAndOccupationIds }),
}).success(function (data, status, headers, config) {
deferred.resolve(data);
}).error(function (data, status, headers, config) {
deferred.reject(status);
});
and my web api action:
[System.Web.Http.HttpPost]
public CrudOperationResults SubmitOcupationalPersonnel(JObject jsonData){
dynamic json = jsonData;
var jPersonnelAndOccupationIds = json["personnelAndOccupationIds"];
var personnelIdsAndOccupations = jPersonnelAndOccupationIds.ToObject(new List<PersonnelOccupationsVm>());
.....
}
this given a RunTimeBinderexception, however when I call .ToString() while retrieving values from the JObject instance:
var jPersonnelAndOccupationIds = json["personnelAndOccupationIds"].ToString();
and (per shunty's suggestion)
var jPersonnelAndOccupationIds = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<PersonnelOccupationsVm>>(jPersonnelAndOccupationIds);
this works fine, the leading and trailing curly braces were added while retieving my parameter values from JObject, calling .ToString() and deserializing it per above did the trick.

Answer 1

I'm not a particularly proficient Json user but, using the Newtonsoft stuff I'd try something like this (cut and pasted from LINQPad):
void Main()
{
string json = "[{ \"personnelId\": 201, \"occupationIds\": [4,5]}, {\"personnelId\": 202,\"occupationIds\": [5]}]";
var js = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<PersonnelOccupationsVm>>(json);
js.Dump();
}
public class PersonnelOccupationsVm
{
public int PersonnelId { get; set; }
public List<int> OccupationIds { get; set; }
public PersonnelOccupationsVm()
{
OccupationIds = new List<int>();
}
}
Note that I had to trim the leading and trailing { } characters from the source Json.