XML to JSON and deserializing

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Posted on by bois0155

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Hello guys,

I have been working on a web service, I did everything based on json, and everything was going well, but the client wants to send data in XML.

So, I was planning to convert XML to JSON on the web client, in that way I didn't need to change the code on my web service.

However, when I convert XML to JSON sometimes it ignore that fact that Items or Boxes are arrays.
If I have 2 container on the XML it will identify that it is an array, but if I have one it will send as an unique object.

Like in the example below. The first box has 2 items so it did convert correctly, but the second box has only one, and it return without [ .

When I receive these values on the web service it will miss these values when I do the deserialization because my contract class look like this

    [
        DataMemberAttribute('Items'),
        DataCollectionAttribute(Types::Class, classStr(ItemsContract))
    ]
    public List parmItems(List _items = items)
    {
        items = _items;
        return items;
    }

{
  "Shipment": {
    "ShipmentId": "Value",
    "Boxes": [
      {
        "BoxID": "001",
        "Weight": "1",
        "Items": [
          {
            "ItemId": "WHSSerialized",
            "Qty": "1"
          },
          {
            "ItemId": "WHSSerialized",
            "Qty": "1"
          }
        ]
      },
      {
        "BoxID": "002",
        "Weight": "1",
        "Items": {
          "ItemId": "WHSSerialized",
          "Qty": "1"
        }
      }
    ]
  }
}

Any ideas?

Thanks

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Answers (1)

Sergei Minozhenko 23,095 on at

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Hi bois0155,

Could you, please, share details about how do you convert XML to JSON on the web client? What is the web client in this case?

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bois0155 260 on at

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Hello Sergei,

I created a basic asp.net page

I'm using

XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();

doc.LoadXml(xmlString);

string json = JsonConvert.SerializeXmlNode(doc);

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Sergei Minozhenko 23,095 on at

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Hi bois0155,

So it's a JSON.NET library.

There are a lot of articles on how to force array in XML->JSON conversion

One of them stackoverflow.com/.../force-json-net-to-convert-xml-to-json-array

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bois0155 260 on at

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Nice, thanks I'll try it.

Taking advantage of the post let me ask another thing. The best practice is to send a json string to the web service and deserialize there, or send the object directly?

Right now, I'm sending a string, but it looks weird when I test using postman I have to do something like the photo below to work.

My method is receiving a string paremeter public void process(str _request) ...

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Sergei Minozhenko 23,095 on at

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Hi bois0155,

I would say the best practice is to use the contract as a parameter for the web service method, instead of a string parameter. It doesn't make too much difference for JSON-based service, but there is also SOAP-based service is available and wsdl schema will be generated based on contracts for web service.

docs.microsoft.com/.../custom-services

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bois0155 260 on at

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Hey Sergei,

I did as you suggested, which means that I don't need to deserialize anymore. I'm using the contract as a parameter. However, I'm dealing with a nested json and I have 3 contract class, I can get the values from the RootContract, but when it try to get the boxes it return the list as a <JObject> instead of my BoxContract class.

ListEnumerator enumerator = RootContract.parmBoxes().getEnumerator();

If I send the parameter as string, and deserialize it, it works perfectly, but when I try to use the Contract is parameter don't.

I have this inside RootContract

[ DataMemberAttribute('Boxes'), DataCollectionAttribute(Types::Class, classStr(BoxesContract)) ] public List parmBoxes(List _boxes = boxes) { boxes = _boxes; return boxes; }

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Sergei Minozhenko 23,095 on at

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Hi bois0155,

For web service contracts you need to use AifCollectionTypeAttribute (parameter and return type) for collection member.

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