JavaScriptSerializer, Parsing Json from HttpRequest, put pars into a table to be displayed

Question

I made a call to a web server called Sample ApI. I want to be able to parse that data that's in json or xml, either would be nice and display it in a table format. This is what I have so far.

All I want is to be able to parse the data that's in this string _responseAsString and display a table. I don't know how to start it, I just know JavaScriptSerialzer parseXXX = new Java...lizer(). Please help me or assist in the right direction.

      public class Event
{
    public string event_key { get; set; }
    public string user_token { get; set; }
    public string event_set_key { get; set; }
    public string event_type { get; set; }
    public string event_date { get; set; }
    public string event_amount { get; set; }
    public string event_location_key { get; set; }
    public string event_location_name { get; set; }
    public string event_location_city { get; set; }
    public string event_location_state { get; set; }
    public string event_location_country { get; set; }
    public string event_acknowledged { get; set; }
}

     public ActionResult GetEvent()
     {
        try
        {

            string at = "aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa";
            string et = "KI2XfwQNByLPFdK4i3a74slLT7sjjzYRi9RR7zEtCoQ%3D";
            string t = "20111128183020";
            string _checkingUrl = String.Format("http://172.22.22.10/SampleAPI/Event/GetEvents?at={0}&et={1}&t={2}&responseFormat=json", at, et, t);
            System.Net.HttpWebRequest request=System.Net.WebRequest.Create(_checkingUrl) as System.Net.HttpWebRequest;
            System.Net.HttpWebResponse response=request.GetResponse() as System.Net.HttpWebResponse;
            System.IO.StreamReader _readResponse=new System.IO.StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
            //The encrypted dynamics response in either xml or json
            string _responseAsString=_readResponse.ReadToEnd();
            JavaScriptSerializer parseResponse = new JavaScriptSerializer();
            List<Event> events = parseResponse.Deserialize<List<Event>>(_responseAsString);

         // this below is to make sure i was receiving my json data.       
     return Content(_responseAsString);


            _readResponse.Close();
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            //log error
        }
        return View();
    }

This is the json data I receive when I make the http request:

"[{\"event_key\":\"cc2a1802-2b04-4530-ad50-0d4f0ed19dd3\",\"user_token\":\"40e62a11-40c4-408d-8cdd-1293cbaf9a41\",\"event_set_key\":\"615017f2-ae28-4b8d-9def-cf043642b928\",\"event_type\":\"Arrival\",\"event_date\":\"6/20/2011 4:15:28 PM\",\"event_amount\":\"100\",\"event_location_key\":\"50fc1c22-d77b-4a91-b31d-da036827060b\",\"event_location_name\":\"Store2\",\"event_location_city\":\"Pittsburgh\",\"event_location_state\":\"PA\",\"event_location_country\":\"US\",\"event_location_lat\":\"\",\"event_location_long\":\"\",\"event_description\":\"\",\"event_acknowledged\":\"True\"},{\"event_key\":\"2ac9e25e-137c-4a72-8cc5-157d67ea66c1\",\"user_token\":\"58cb4fcd-e140-4232-88c9-06eecb95b63d\",\"event_set_key\":\"00710ca7-f5d7-4c7a-bbfb-95491ae278ef\",\"event_type\":\"Arrival\",\"event_date\":\"9/23/2011 4:15:28 PM\",\"event_amount\":\"45\",\"event_location_key\":\"5a732dd5-9459-4cdd-a980-f3daf1a07343\",\"event_location_name\":\"Store4\",\"event_location_city\":\"Pittsburgh\",\"event_location_state\":\"PA\",\"event_location_country\":\"US\",\"event_location_lat\":\"\",\"event_location_long\":\"\",\"event_description\":\"\",\"event_acknowledged\":\"False\"},{\"event_key\":\"386b1fa1-11b2-48d9-b7f1-4bbe21ced487\",\"user_token\":\"c3d8b7ff-d85f-42a8-98f6-e091b48c2280\",\"event_set_key\":\"dc55843b-f8cf-4e8a-9091-188ce0609fe1\",\"event_type\":\"Arrival\",\"event_date\":\"9/18/2011 4:15:28 PM\",\"event_amount\":\"100\",\"event_location_key\":\"be6d4fb4-c0e3-4303-b70d-7a22b721aa56\",\"event_location_name\":\"Store1\",\"event_location_city\":\"Pittsburgh\",\"event_location_state\":\"PA\",\"event_location_country\":\"US\",\"event_location_lat\":\"\",\"event_location_long\":\"\",\"event_description\":\"\",\"event_acknowledged\":\"False\"}]"

is the result always going to be in the exact same format? JSON like this is barely legible to read the format of it , XML might be easier if that is an option and you don't know how to parse either- it might be a better place to start — Scott Selby, Jun 14 '12 at 16:08
@ScottSelby the message is already verbose, XML will double the number of bytes taken up by the keys in this message as they will be repeated in the closing tags. — Fenton, Jun 14 '12 at 16:10
JSON is definetly more efficient , but if you don't know where to even start as far as parsing.. I was talking about which is easier to use — Scott Selby, Jun 14 '12 at 16:12
just suppose if i didn't supply that json data...how do i go about parsing it i have JavaScriptSerialzer parseResponse = new JavaScripxx(); "something" obj = parseREsponse.Deserialize<"somthing"(_responseAsString)~<- that string is all that json u see in my code — Yusuf, Jun 14 '12 at 16:22

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 14 '12 at 16:09

2

The JSON website has some good information on this.

For older browsers, you would eval the string (with some brackets to make it work):

var myObject = eval('(' + myJsonText + ')');

And these days, we tend to use

JSON.parse(myJsonText);

And server side, in C#

var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
T obj = serializer.Deserialize<T>(myJsonText);

answered Jun 14 '12 at 16:09

Fenton

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@user1392576 - or C# - examples for both above. In C# you use the `JavaScriptSerializer` to do the same thing. – Fenton Jun 14 '12 at 16:13
@user1392576 T is the type of the object you want to get back. – Fenton Jun 14 '12 at 16:13
but when I write T it gives me an error..its not in the library package – Yusuf Jun 14 '12 at 16:17
@user1392576 - put "JSON.parse" in Google – Mark Schultheiss Jun 14 '12 at 17:29
@user1392576 replace "T" with the type. i.e. `MyClass myClass = serializer.Deserialize(myJsonText);` – Fenton Jun 14 '12 at 18:45
i can i make a table out of the data i provided – Yusuf Jun 14 '12 at 19:44

moribvndvs · Answer 2 · 2012-06-14T17:43:50.693

First of all...

If you're just passing through the JSON message returned from some other API, why not just return their response string verbatim (in other words, why deserialize it at all)?

 public ActionResult GetEvent()
 {
        string at = "aaaaaaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaa";
        string et = "KI2XfwQNByLPFdK4i3a74slLT7sjjzYRi9RR7zEtCoQ%3D";
        string t = "20111128183020";
        string _checkingUrl = String.Format("http://172.22.22.10/SampleAPI/Event/GetEvents?at={0}&et={1}&t={2}&responseFormat=json", at, et, t);
        System.Net.HttpWebRequest request=System.Net.WebRequest.Create(_checkingUrl) as System.Net.HttpWebRequest;
        System.Net.HttpWebResponse response=request.GetResponse() as System.Net.HttpWebResponse;
        using (var readResponse= new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()))
        {
             return Content(readResponse.ReadToEnd(), "application/json");
        }
}

Then read on

It's possible to use a JSON text reader to break apart the JSON message into a table of name/value pairs, but I think that's missing the point in your case. If the message is constant, just create a class that represents each element in the JSON message and parse it. I used json2csharp to stub such a class:

public class Event
{
    public string event_key { get; set; }
    public string user_token { get; set; }
    public string event_set_key { get; set; }
    public string event_type { get; set; }
    public string event_date { get; set; }
    public string event_amount { get; set; }
    public string event_location_key { get; set; }
    public string event_location_name { get; set; }
    public string event_location_city { get; set; }
    public string event_location_state { get; set; }
    public string event_location_country { get; set; }
    public string event_location_lat { get; set; }
    public string event_location_long { get; set; }
    public string event_description { get; set; }
    public string event_acknowledged { get; set; }
}

Then use your favorite JSON serializer to deserialize into a list of these objects:

var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var events = serializer.Deserialize<List<Event>>(responseAsString);

(I prefer JSON.NET, here's the equivalent to the block above)

var events = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Event>>(responseAsString);

If you actually do need to be able to read a stream of text and generically create a table of name/value pairs, I'd use JSON.NET's LINQ-to-JSON or the JsonTextReader.

I am deserializing it because my mentor wants me to do it like that.. He wants me to learn it that way for now. — Yusuf, Jun 14 '12 at 18:09

JavaScriptSerializer, Parsing Json from HttpRequest, put pars into a table to be displayed

2 Answers2