Parsing Yahoo! Placemaker JSON response using JavaScriptSerializer

Question

I'm having a problem parsing the JSON response sent from Yahoo! Placemaker. I only need the List LocalScopes.

My class definitions are the following:

public class PlacemakerResponse
{

    public Document document { get; set; }

    public class Document
    {
        public List<LocalScope> localScopes { get; set; }
    }

}

public class LocalScope
{

    public String woeId { get; set; }
    public String name { get; set; }
    public Centroid centroid { get; set; }

    public class Centroid
    {
        public String latitude { get; set; }
        public String longitude { get; set; }
    }

}

The complete JSON string is the following. I validated it at JSONLint and everything seems to be the order.

{
    "processingTime": "0.00191",
    "version": " build 110725",
    "documentLength": "36",
    "document": {
        "0": {
            "placeDetails": {
                "placeId": "1",
                "place": {
                    "woeId": "483446",
                    "type": "Town",
                    "name": "Misida, Malta Majjistral, MT",
                    "centroid": {
                        "latitude": "35.8956",
                        "longitude": "14.4892"
                    }
                },
                "placeReferenceIds": "1",
                "matchType": "0",
                "weight": "1",
                "confidence": "10"
            }
        },
        "1": {
            "placeDetails": {
                "placeId": "2",
                "place": {
                    "woeId": "2450022",
                    "type": "Town",
                    "name": "Miami, FL, US",
                    "centroid": {
                        "latitude": "25.729",
                        "longitude": "-80.2374"
                    }
                },
                "placeReferenceIds": "2",
                "matchType": "0",
                "weight": "1",
                "confidence": "10"
            }
        },
        "administrativeScope": {
            "woeId": "0",
            "type": "Undefined",
            "name": "",
            "centroid": {
                "latitude": "0",
                "longitude": "0"
            }
        },
        "geographicScope": {
            "woeId": "1",
            "type": "Supername",
            "name": "Earth",
            "centroid": {
                "latitude": "0",
                "longitude": "0"
            }
        },
        "localScopes": [
            {
                "localScope": {
                    "woeId": "483446",
                    "type": "Town",
                    "name": "Misida, Malta Majjistral, MT (Town)",
                    "centroid": {
                        "latitude": "35.8956",
                        "longitude": "14.4892"
                    },
                    "southWest": {
                        "latitude": "35.8893",
                        "longitude": "14.472"
                    },
                    "northEast": {
                        "latitude": "35.9109",
                        "longitude": "14.4986"
                    },
                    "ancestors": [
                        {
                            "ancestor": {
                                "woeId": "24551414",
                                "type": "Locality",
                                "name": "Msida"
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            "ancestor": {
                                "woeId": "56043491",
                                "type": "Region",
                                "name": "Malta Majjistral"
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            "ancestor": {
                                "woeId": "23424897",
                                "type": "Country",
                                "name": "Malta"
                            }
                        }
                    ]
                }
            },
            {
                "localScope": {
                    "woeId": "2450022",
                    "type": "Town",
                    "name": "Miami, FL, US (Town)",
                    "centroid": {
                        "latitude": "25.729",
                        "longitude": "-80.2374"
                    },
                    "southWest": {
                        "latitude": "25.5403",
                        "longitude": "-80.4469"
                    },
                    "northEast": {
                        "latitude": "25.9578",
                        "longitude": "-80.028"
                    },
                    "ancestors": [
                        {
                            "ancestor": {
                                "woeId": "12587815",
                                "type": "County",
                                "name": "Miami-Dade"
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            "ancestor": {
                                "woeId": "2347568",
                                "type": "State",
                                "name": "Florida"
                            }
                        },
                        {
                            "ancestor": {
                                "woeId": "23424977",
                                "type": "Country",
                                "name": "United States"
                            }
                        }
                    ]
                }
            }
        ],
        "extents": {
            "center": {
                "latitude": "35.8956",
                "longitude": "14.4892"
            },
            "southWest": {
                "latitude": "25.5403",
                "longitude": "-80.4469"
            },
            "northEast": {
                "latitude": "35.9109",
                "longitude": "14.4986"
            }
        },
        "referenceList": [
            {
                "reference": {
                    "woeIds": "483446",
                    "placeReferenceId": "1",
                    "placeIds": "1",
                    "start": "20",
                    "end": "25",
                    "isPlaintextMarker": "1",
                    "text": "Msida",
                    "type": "plaintext",
                    "xpath": ""
                }
            },
            {
                "reference": {
                    "woeIds": "2450022",
                    "placeReferenceId": "2",
                    "placeIds": "2",
                    "start": "30",
                    "end": "35",
                    "isPlaintextMarker": "1",
                    "text": "Miami",
                    "type": "plaintext",
                    "xpath": ""
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

When I do: List<LocalScope> places = (ser.Deserialize<PlacemakerResponse>(stringJSON)).document.localScopes;

The places list has two LocalScope objects, as in the JSON String (so far so good), BUT all three members (woeId, name, centroid) are set to null!!

I've used the JavaScriptSerializer many times before and never had any problems, does anybody have any suggestions on what I'm doing wrong?

Thank you.

Answer 1

I think you should change your class declarations as follows

public class PlacemakerResponse
{

    public Document document { get; set; }

    public class Document
    {
        public List<AnotherPlacemaker> localScopes { get; set; }
    }

}

public class AnotherPlacemaker
{
    public LocalScope LocalScope;
}


public class LocalScope
{

    public String woeId { get; set; }
    public String name { get; set; }
    public Centroid centroid { get; set; }

    public class Centroid
    {
        public String latitude { get; set; }
        public String longitude { get; set; }
    }

}

If you wanted to use Json.Net you could write your code as below without declaring those ugly objects

dynamic yahooObj =  JsonUtils.JsonObject.GetDynamicJsonObject(yourstring);
foreach (var item in yahooObj.document.localScopes)
{
    Console.WriteLine(
        item.localScope.woeId + " " + 
        item.localScope.name + " " + 
        item.localScope.centroid.latitude + " " + 
        item.localScope.centroid.longitude);
}