How To Work With JSON In ASP.NET

Pretty excited while writing this article as it’s one of the favorite topics for me. Before jumping into working with JSON, let’s first understand what it is.

JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) is a lightweight data-interchange format. It is easy for humans to read and write. It is easy for machines to parse and generate. It is based on a subset of the JavaScript Programming Language, Standard ECMA-262 3rd Edition – December 1999.

What is JSON?

1. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation
2. JSON is a format to exchange & store data across platform.
3. JSON is the best alternative to XML
4. JSON stores values in key/value pair format.

                                             How to work with JSON in ASP.NET

With introduction of JSON, many developers prefer to use JSON instead of XML

Below are the reasons for using JSON:

• XML is expressed in more words than JSON. Hence, JSON is faster to write for programmers.
  
• JSON is light weight and easy to write compared to XML.
  
• We can store values as key/value pair in JSON. Whereas, in XML, we have to store values between opening and closing tags.

Working with JSON in ASP.NET

JSON follows syntax based on JavaScript and it cannot be processed the same way by C#.

In order to work with JSON in ASP.NET or C#, there are three methods.

1. Using a free library, which would do all the complex work for you.
2. Working with DataContracts that are built-in to the .NET framework.
3. Writing your own “parser” for converting JSON into suitable format required.

In this article, I have used the free library named – JSON.NET. You can add this library into your project using NuGet package manager. If you are not sure about adding the library, please refer to this article – Adding references using NuGet packages

Code Snippets:

public JObject ReadJSONData(string jsonFilename)
        {
            try
            {
                JObject jObject;
                // Read JSON directly from a file
                using (StreamReader file = System.IO.File.OpenText(jsonFilename))
                using (JsonTextReader reader = new JsonTextReader(file))
                {
                    jObject = (JObject)JToken.ReadFrom(reader);
                }
                return jObject;
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("Error Occurred : " + ex.Message);
                return null;
            }
        }

//Read calendar info from JSON file
 JObject jObject = ReadJSONData(jsonFilename);
 for (int i = 0; i < jObject["employee"].Count(); i++)
 {
      //Your logic goes here...
 }

Example of JSON file:

 {
"employee" : [
 {   "name" : "Shankar",   "empid" : "1",   "department" : "Design", },
{   "name" : "Ashish",   "empid" : "2",   "department" : "Testing", },
{   "name" : "Dipendra",   "empid" : "3",   "department" : "Development", }  ]
}

Hope you enjoyed this article. Keep exploring and using JSON with ASP.NET. Let me know in case if you feel there is any issue with the article or if you didn’t follow any part of it.

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