Parsing Unknown JSON using JavascriptSerializer in C#

Question

How can I use JavaScriptSerializer to parse some unknown dynamic JSON. In particular, I'm writing my own wrapper for the Google Calendar API. An event has an object called extendedProperties with both a private object and shared object containing an unknown set of properties:

"extendedProperties": {
    "private": {
        "UnknownKey1": "UnknownValue1",
        "UnknownKey2": "UnknownValue2",
        "UnknownKey3": "UnknownValue3"
    },
    "shared": {
        "UnknownKey1": "UnknownValue1",
        "UnknownKey2": "UnknownValue2",
        "UnknownKey3": "UnknownValue3"
    }
}

I want to create a class like this for the JavaScriptSerializer:

public class ExtendedProperties
{
    public ??? @private { get; set; }
    public ??? shared { get; set; }
}

Of course there are problems.

(1) Does the serializer understand the ampersand so it will parse the property 'private'?

(2) What would the return type be for the properties that the JavaScriptSerializer could read/write? Some sort of Dictionary?

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

The parser understands the @ symbol. You can use dynamic as your type if you're using .net 4. You could try Dictionary<string,string> although I've always had problems with serializing and deserializing dictionaries to the same reference object. List<KeyValuePair<string, string>> usually does the trick.

Answer 2

var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var jsonObject = serializer.Deserialize<IDictionary<string, object>>(jsonStr);

I have used this code to deserialize unknown json objects.