Returning a string containing some JSON object from ServiceStack
I have the following DTO:
public class MyDTO
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public String Info { get; set; }
}
The Info element contains some serialized JSON object, which can be of several different types. In my utility function I am returning this DTO withreturn x.ConvertTo<MyDTO>()
My problem is that, since the ServiceStack does not know that Info contains JSON, the special characters (quotes) of the Info are dumped.
So I get
{"Id":15,"Info":"[\"Test1\",\"Test2\",\"Test3\"]"}
from the service, but what I would like to get is actually
{"Id":15,"Info":["Test1","Test2","Test3"]}
Is there some way to tell the ServiceStack that Info is storing JSON data and thus not allowing string escaping and instead inserting the JSON value directly into the response?
PS: My question is not a duplicate of this question , which has to do with forcing the default DTO encoding of a JSON service, while my problem has to do with how JSON encoding is done for certain types.
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with composition you can interpret the property Info
MyDTO
public class MyDTO<T> : MyDTO {
public MyDTO(MyDTO dto) {
this.Id = dto.Id;
this.Info = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(dto.Info);
}
public new T Info { get; set; }
}
this way the JSON value in Info can be normalized before being returned for serialization.
for example
var dto = x.ConvertTo<MyDTO>();
return new MyDTO<dynamic>(dto);
If dto.Info
was an array of JSON strings, this would allow the array to be serialized as desired in the OP
var dto = new MyDTO {
Id = 15,
Info = "[\"Test1\",\"Test2\",\"Test3\"]"
}
will create
{"Id":15,"Info":"[\"Test1\",\"Test2\",\"Test3\"]"}
where as
new MyDTO<dynamic>(dto);
will create
{"Id":15,"Info":["Test1","Test2","Test3"]}
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My colleagues and I ran into a similar problem, and with the help of Demis Bello, we were able to find a solution that, if translated into code in the OP, would look like this:
public class MyDTO
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public Dictionary<string, object> Info { get; set; }
}
When we fill in the DTO, we use it JSON.parse
like this:
var json = (Dictionary<string, object>)JSON.parse(rawJsonString);
return new MyDTO
{
Id = 42,
Info = json
};
Our raw JSON string was a JSON object. In the OP it looks like the raw JSON string could be an array, in which case it looks like it might be the appropriate property type List<object>
.
JSON.parse
can be found at ServiceStack.Common .
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