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I'm using JSON.NET to deserialize AJAX HTTP requests sent in from the browser, and am running into problems with web service calls that use a Guid[] as a parameter. This worked fine when I used the built in .NET serializer.

First off, the raw bytes in the stream look like this:

System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.GetString(rawBody);
"{\"recipeIds\":[\"d9ede305-d244-483b-a435-abcf350efdb2\"]}"

I then call:

Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer serializer = new Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializer();
parameters[0] = serializer.Deserialize(sr, operation.Messages[0].Body.Parts[0].Type);

.Type is System.Guid[]

I then get the exception:

Cannot deserialize the current JSON object (e.g. {"name":"value"}) into type 'System.Guid[]' because the type requires a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) to deserialize correctly.

To fix this error either change the JSON to a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) or change the deserialized type so that it is a normal .NET type (e.g. not a primitive type like integer, not a collection type like an array or List<T>) that can be deserialized from a JSON object. JsonObjectAttribute can also be added to the type to force it to deserialize from a JSON object.

Path 'recipeIds', line 1, position 13.

Web service methods that take in a single Guid (not an array) work, so I know JSON.NET is able to convert a string into a GUID, but it seems to blow up when you have an array of strings that you want to deserialize to an array of GUIDs.

Is this a JSON.NET bug, and is there a way to fix this? I suppose I could write my own custom Guid collection type, but I'd rather not.

Mike Christensen
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1 Answers1

5

You need a wrapper class

string json = "{\"recipeIds\":[\"d9ede305-d244-483b-a435-abcf350efdb2\"]}";
var obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Wrapper>(json);


public class Wrapper
{
    public Guid[] recipeIds;
}

--EDIT--

Using Linq

var obj = (JObject)JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);

var guids = obj["recipeIds"].Children()
            .Cast<JValue>()
            .Select(x => Guid.Parse(x.ToString()))
            .ToList();
L.B
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