Deserializing JSON into one of several C# subclasses
c#, deserialization, inheritance, json
Solution
As @AmithGeorge suggested, you can use a `dynamic` object to dynamically parse your json object. You can use this great dynamic class for JSON by Shawn Weisfeld. Here is his blog explaining how he do it.
JavaScriptSerializer jss = new JavaScriptSerializer();
jss.RegisterConverters(new JavaScriptConverter[] { new DynamicJsonConverter() });
dynamic glossaryEntry = jss.Deserialize(json, typeof(object)) as dynamic;
Console.WriteLine("glossaryEntry.glossary.title: " + glossaryEntry.glossary.title);
Console.WriteLine("glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.title: " + glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.title);
Console.WriteLine("glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.GlossList.GlossEntry.ID: " + glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.GlossList.GlossEntry.ID);
Console.WriteLine("glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.GlossList.GlossEntry.GlossDef.para: " + glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.GlossList.GlossEntry.GlossDef.para);
foreach (var also in glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.GlossList.GlossEntry.GlossDef.GlossSeeAlso)
{
Console.WriteLine("glossaryEntry.glossary.GlossDiv.GlossList.GlossEntry.GlossDef.GlossSeeAlso: " + also);
}
Problem
I have a json structure that looks something like this: ``` "list":[ { "type":"link", "href":"http://google.com" }, { "type":"image", "src":"http://google.com/logo.png" }, { "type":"text", "text":"some text here" }, ] ``` I would like to deserialize this into a list of objects, where each object is a subclass of a base class. Each item in the list has different properties (href, src, text), so I can't use the same class for reach one. Instead I would like three subclasses of a general class. The type property of each item in the JSON list can be used to decide which subclass to use. So for example, I could have the following classes ``` public Item{ public string type {get; set;} } public LinkItem : Item { public string href {get; set;} } public ImageItem : Item { public string src {get; set;} } public TextItem : Item { public string text {get; set;} } ``` Is there any way to do this? Or is there a better way to deserialize a list of heterogeneous object types? EDIT: I am using json.net by the way