Scribd
Upload
62 views

Querying JSON With LINQ

This document discusses querying JSON with LINQ in C#. It provides examples of getting values from a JSON object by property name or index and querying JSON with LINQ operators like Where, OrderBy, and Select. It also demonstrates how to manually deserialize JSON into .NET objects using LINQ.

Uploaded by

Jaafaru Habu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
62 views

Querying JSON With LINQ

This document discusses querying JSON with LINQ in C#. It provides examples of getting values from a JSON object by property name or index and querying JSON with LINQ operators like Where, OrderBy, and Select. It also demonstrates how to manually deserialize JSON into .NET objects using LINQ.

Uploaded by

Jaafaru Habu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

newtonsoft.

com

Querying JSON with LINQ


4 minutes

Getting values by Property Name or Collection Index

The simplest way to get a value from LINQ to JSON is to use the Item[Object] index on
JObject/JArray and then cast the returned JValue to the type you want.

string json = @"{


'channel': {
'title': 'James Newton-King',
'link': 'http://james.newtonking.com',
'description': 'James Newton-King\'s blog.',
'item': [
{
'title': 'Json.NET 1.3 + New license + Now on CodePlex',
'description': 'Announcing the release of Json.NET 1.3, the MIT
license and the source on CodePlex',
'link': 'http://james.newtonking.com/projects/json-net.aspx',
'categories': [
'Json.NET',
'CodePlex'
]
},
{
'title': 'LINQ to JSON beta',
'description': 'Announcing LINQ to JSON',
'link': 'http://james.newtonking.com/projects/json-net.aspx',
'categories': [
'Json.NET',
'LINQ'
]
}
]
}
}";

JObject rss = JObject.Parse(json);

string rssTitle = (string)rss["channel"]["title"];


string itemTitle = (string)rss["channel"]["item"][0]["title"];

JArray categories = (JArray)rss["channel"]["item"][0]["categories"];

IList<string> categoriesText = categories.Select(c => (string)c).ToList();

Querying with LINQ

JObject/JArray can also be queried using LINQ. Children() returns the children values of a
JObject/JArray as an IEnumerable<JToken> that can then be queried with the standard
Where/OrderBy/Select LINQ operators.

 Note
Children() returns all the children of a token. If it is a JObject it will return a collection of
properties to work with, and if it is a JArray you will get a collection of the array's values.
var postTitles =
from p in rss["channel"]["item"]
select (string)p["title"];

foreach (var item in postTitles)


{
Console.WriteLine(item);
}

var categories =
from c in rss["channel"]["item"].SelectMany(i =>
i["categories"]).Values<string>()
group c by c
into g
orderby g.Count() descending
select new { Category = g.Key, Count = g.Count() };

foreach (var c in categories)


{
Console.WriteLine(c.Category + " - Count: " + c.Count);
}

LINQ to JSON can also be used to manually convert JSON to a .NET object.

Deserializing Using LINQ Objects

public class Shortie


{
public string Original { get; set; }
public string Shortened { get; set; }
public string Short { get; set; }
public ShortieException Error { get; set; }
}

public class ShortieException


{
public int Code { get; set; }
public string ErrorMessage { get; set; }
}

Manually serializing and deserializing between .NET objects is useful when you are working
with JSON that doesn't closely match your .NET objects.

Deserializing Using LINQ Example

string jsonText = @"{


'short': {
'original': 'http://www.foo.com/',
'short': 'krehqk',
'error': {
'code': 0,
'msg': 'No action taken'
}
}
}";

JObject json = JObject.Parse(jsonText);

Shortie shortie = new Shortie


{
Original = (string)json["short"]["original"],
Short = (string)json["short"]["short"],
Error = new ShortieException
{
Code = (int)json["short"]["error"]["code"],
ErrorMessage = (string)json["short"]["error"]["msg"]
}
};

Console.WriteLine(shortie.Original);

Console.WriteLine(shortie.Error.ErrorMessage);

See Also

You might also like