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Jon Skeet

Deserializing the Json object to .NET object

I have following JSON object returned by vatlayer api

{
  "success":true,
  "rates":{
    "AT":{
      "country_name":"Austria",
      "standard_rate":20,
      "reduced_rates":{
        "foodstuffs":10,
        "books":10,
        "pharmaceuticals":10,
        "passenger transport":10,
        "newspapers":10,
        "admission to cultural events":10,
        "hotels":10,
        "admission to entertainment events":10
      }
    },
    "BE":{
      "country_name":"Belgium",
      "standard_rate":21,
      "reduced_rates":{
        "restaurants":12,
        "foodstuffs":6,
        "books":6,
        "water":6,
        "pharmaceuticals":6,
        "medical":6,
        "newspapers":6,
        "hotels":6,
        "admission to cultural events":6,
        "admission to entertainment events":6
      }
    },
    "BG":{
      "country_name":"Bulgaria",
      "standard_rate":20,
      "reduced_rates":{
        "hotels":9
      }
    }
    ...more obejcts
    ...more objects
    ...more objects
}

I want to read data in following class

public class Country{
   public string ShortCode{get;set;}// AT, BE, etc are examples of shortcode
   public string Country_Name{get;set;}// Austria, Belgium etc
   public decimal Standar_Rate{get;set;}// 20 and 21 respectively
}

The problem is that web service is not sending data as an array of JSON objects. Rather, its sending a single object where each country short code is the key in JSON. How do I deserialize this object to List or Array of Country objects. I am open to using any JSON converter

Just model the response like this:

public class Response
{
    public bool Success { get; set; }
    public Dictionary<string, Country> Rates { get; set; }
}

Then:

var response = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Response>(json);
var allCountries = response.Rates.Values.ToList();

Note that that won't give you the ShortCode, which is in the dictionary key. You could get that using:

// Assuming the names have been fixed to be idiomatic...
var allCountries = response.Rates.Select(pair =>
    new Country {
        CountryName = pair.Value.CountryName,
        StandardRate = pair.Value.StandardRate,
        ShortCode = pair.Key
    })
    .ToList();

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