How to avoid ExpandoObject flattening?

Question

Model looks like this:

public class Foo
{
    public long Id { get; set; }
    public ExpandoObject Attributes { get; set; }
}

What I get as a result from Web API call:

[
    {
        Id: 1,
        Attribute1: "XYZ",
        Attributes: "ABC"
    }
]

What I expect to get:

[
    {
        Id: 1,
        Attributes:
        {
            Attribute1: "XYZ",
            Attributes: "ABC"
        }
    }
]

Controller action returns IQueryable.

public IQueryable<Foo> Get()
{
    var result = ...;
    return result.AsQueryable();
}

result variable is a collection of Foo objects. Could anybody explain why does it happen?

You are asking to put Id in the expando as well. Hard to see why that is necessary. Do consider the Json.NET library. — Hans Passant, Sep 21 '18 at 11:06
Please post your controller action too. Which JSON serializer do you use? — Sphinxxx, Sep 21 '18 at 11:21
@HansPassant Thanks for the response. Now I see how it looks like, but the real model is much bigger, this one was created for simplicity purposes. — mankers, Sep 21 '18 at 11:58
@Sphinxxx Thanks for your response. The action is not complicated, I've edited my question. — mankers, Sep 21 '18 at 12:02

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 21 '18 at 12:45

Ok, I found one solution. I'm pretty sure not the best, but working.

I introduced a class containing only one property:

public class Bar
{
    public ExapndoObject Content { get; set; }
}

and used it in Foo class:

public class Foo
{
    public long Id { get; set; }
    public Bar Attributes { get; set; }
}

Anyway, I'm still interested in better solutions.

1 Answers1