Monotouch: Deserialize JSON from MVC to Montouch - json

Question

In my test vb.net MVC web app, I have this json....
Public Class Person
Public Property Name As String
Public Property Age As Byte
Public Sub New(name As String, age As Byte)
Me.Name = name
Me.Age = age
End Sub
End Class
Function GetPerson() As JsonResult
Dim p As New Person("John Doe", 50)
Return Json(p, JsonRequestBehavior.AllowGet)
End Function
And in Monotouch I've got this...
JsonObject j;
Uri address = new Uri("http://mysite/home/GetPerson");
HttpWebRequest httpReq = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create (address);
using (HttpWebResponse httpRes = (HttpWebResponse)httpReq.GetResponse ()) {
Stream s = httpRes.GetResponseStream ();
j = (JsonObject)JsonObject.Load (s);
}
And this class...
Public Class Person {
Public string Name { get; set; }
Public byte Age { get; set; }
}
How do I parse the JsonObject j into class of Person? .. I hoped for something like Person p = (Person)j.value;
Thanks!
Mojo

Answer 1

First, I would use int for Age. But assuming a JSON Structure like:
{
"Name" : "John Doe",
"Age" : 100,
}
If you wanted to use the baked in System.Json stuff:
var person = new Person()
var obj = JsonObject.Parse(json);
person.Name = obj["Name"].ToString();
person.Age = (int)obj["Age"];
I would HIGHLY recommend using ServiceStack.Text though, it's a highly optimized extremely fast library for consuming JSON with compatibility with both MonoTouch and Mono for Android...out of the box!
You can check out the the API for consuming JSON with ServiceStack here.

Answer 2

Even if this question is now old, here is the solution I use.
With MonoTouch, you can use .net Json serialization mechanism based on DataContract.
[DataContract]
Public Class Person {
[DataMember]
Public string Name { get; set; }
[DataMember]
Public byte Age { get; set; }
}
and use the DataContractJsonSerializer (found in System.Runtime.Serialization.Json)
Stream stream = httpRes.GetResponseStream ();
DataContractJsonSerializer jsSerializer = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(Person));
Person person = (Person)jsSerializer.ReadObject(stream);
This way, the code is WCF compliant and work flawless on ms.net platform, mono and monotouch.