I want to access these parameters quickly without dissecting the JSON by looping and if-ing through the layers. In other words: I want single line expressions to dive into JSON and extract values.
You can call it XPath for JSON, but in a language integrated and compiled way, which is much faster, than XPath and supported by Intellisense (autocomplete).
GitHub project: https://github.com/wolfspelz/JsonPath
NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/JsonPath
Example: extract the 42 from:
var data = "[ '1st', '2nd', { 'aString': 'Hello World', 'aNumber': 42 } ]"
... parse it:
var json = new Node(data);
... extract it:
int fourtytwo = json[2]["aNumber"];
Invalid keys do not throw exceptions. They return 0 (zero), "" (empty string), or empty list:
int zero = json[1000]["noNumber"];
Of course, you can foreach a dictionary (aka JS object):
foreach (var pair in json[2]) {}
And iterate over a list (aka JS array):
for (int i = 0; i < json.Count; i++) {
string value = json[i];
}
You can even LINQ it:
json[2].Where(pair => pair.Key == "aNumber").First().Value
and:
(from x in json[2] where x.Key == "aNumber" select x.Value).First()
Now get me the 50 from this JSON:
var data = "[ {
aInt: 41,
bLong: 42000000000,
cBool: true,
dString: '43',
eFloat: 3.14159265358979323
}, {
fInt: 44,
gLong: 45000000000,
hString: "46"
}, {
iList: [
{ jInt: 47, kString: '48' },
{ lInt: 49, mString: '50' }
],
}
]";
I can do it in a single line, no foreach no if:
var fifty = json[2]["iList"][1]["mString"];
Other people had the same idea years ago: http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/. But there does not seem to be a C#/.NET implementation yet. So here it is: GitHub, nuget.
_happy_jsoning()
