Develop Reference

Regular Expressions C#: Clean bad Json string

I get an answer from the server in the form of such JSON:
var zohozoho_atliview92 = {\"Itinerary\":[
{\"Client_Email\":\"garymc\",
\"Client_Name\":\"Gary\",
\"NT_Number\":\"NT-1237\",\"Number_of_Nights\":7,
\"ID\":\"24297940\",
\"Itinerary_Name\":\"Icelandnights\",
\"Tour_Template_Name\":\"Iceland FireDrive\",
\"Departure_Date\":\"2018-07-04\"}
]};
I need to remove this: var zohozoho_atliview92 = {\"Itinerary\":[ and delete last 3 characters ]}; to Deserialize it in my object.
How can i make it using Regular Expressions? Or is there a better variant?

is there a better variant?
Yes you can parse your json escaped string to JObject.
And then you can access any key/value pair from json with Querying JSON with LINQ
Or you can map your JObject to your custom type by using var result = jObject.ToObject<T>();
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
var zohozoho_atliview92 = "{\"Itinerary\":[ {\"Client_Email\":\"garymc\", \"Client_Name\":\"Gary\", \"NT_Number\":\"NT-1237\",\"Number_of_Nights\":7, \"ID\":\"24297940\", \"Itinerary_Name\":\"Icelandnights\", \"Tour_Template_Name\":\"Iceland FireDrive\", \"Departure_Date\":\"2018-07-04\"}]}";
JObject jObject = JObject.Parse(zohozoho_atliview92);
Console.WriteLine(jObject);
Console.ReadLine();
}
}
Output:

This is not JSON, it's Javascript (wich object declaration is JSON).
Regular expressions are slow, I would advise you to use Substring
var start=inputString.IndexOf("[");
var end=("]");
var json=inputString.Substring(start, end-start);
There might be some of by one errors, test and correct.
It would be even faster but weaker to hardcode start.

Append data in a json file in C#

How would i keep appending data?
I have this:
{
"13232": [
"2012952"
]
}
And i want to add an another object to it, example:
{
"13232": [
"2012952"
],
"19213": [
"2016086"
]
}
This is the code i use:
JArray array = new JArray();
array.Add(Itemid);
JObject o = new JObject();
o[Userid] = array;
string json = o.ToString(Formatting.Indented);
//i know this keeps appending text but how would i append it inside the { and }?
File.AppendAllText("E:/media.json", json);
I literally have no idea how to keep adding it, but maybe someone else has?

You won't be able to use file append operations to do this. File append operations can only add text to the end, they can't insert text at some point in the middle. This makes it impossible to use file-append to keep the JSON valid.
You have two choices that I can think of:
Read the entire file into an object, add your object, and then
rewrite the entire file (poor performance)
Open the file read/write, parse through
until you get to the closing curly brace, then write the remaining
data, then write the close curly brace (not trivial)

The safest approach is read-update-rewrite (applies to JSON and XML format as they don't support appending).
Next option if you can live with invalid JSON is to simply concatenate JSON fragments with code you have and than use SupportMultipleContent in JsonReader to read fragments Read Multiple Fragments With JsonReader
If those approaches don't work and your format is fixed - find position of last ] in the file, seek stream there and write new array elements and append ]}.

I recommand you use Newtonsoft Json lib, available as a nuget package.
You can the make a model class to represent on of the json node then you can de-serialize you Json to that model and build an array containing the new element at the end to then re-serialize it to json after.
Look at this MSDN page about it: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb412179(v=vs.110).aspx
Edit: Actual NewtonSoft Documentation
In steps: 1 Deserialize the collection
2: And a new class instance with listName.Add(className);
3: Reserialize the collection

My approach was to add an additional step to my string handling.
public void WriteObjectToFile(object objectToInsert)
{
var stringToSaveToFile = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(objectToInsert) + ",";
File.AppendAllText(this.path, stringToSaveToFile);
}
public List<objects> GetListFromFile()
{
var notQuiteJSONstring = File.ReadAllTest(this.path);
var treatment1 = notQuiteJSONstring.Substring(0, notQuiteJSONstring.Length -1); //remove the trailing comma
var treatment2 = "[" + treatment1 + "]"; // wrap string with brackets to deserialize as list
var list = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<object>>(treatment2);
return list;
}

A simple parser from JSON string to Dictionary

I want to avoid importing a huge library to gain full JSON support.
My use case is REALLY simple: I need a parser to handle one specific case of JSON, where both key and value are strings, ie. { "name": "David" }. No nesting, no arrays, no object serialization.
The reason being, I use JSON only for i18n, and I have structure my translation files to be flat JSON.
Is it a good idea to hand roll my own parser?
Is there one out there already?
Are there easier solutions to my problem?
EDIT: yes, I do know JSON.net is the defacto solution for .NET, but it's not the solution for Unity (not natively). I really only need a tiny portion of its power.

System.Json might do the trick for you.
The JsonValue.Parse() Method parses JSON text and returns a JsonValue like
JsonValue value = JsonValue.Parse(#"{ ""name"": ""David"" }");
You can also have a look at The JavaScriptSerializer class is used internally by the asynchronous communication layer to serialize and deserialize the data that is passed between the browser and the Web server.
var Names = new JavaScriptSerializer().Deserialize<YourNameClass>(json);

OK I found one! https://github.com/zanders3/json
Has decent tests, minimal features and likely designed for my specific use case.
To load a JSON file:
Dictionary<string, object> locales = new Dictionary<string, object>();
TextAsset file = Resources.Load(name) as TextAsset;
var locale = file.text.FromJson<object>();
locales.Add(name, locale);
To use the JSON dictionary:
string activeLocale = "en-US";
var locale = locales[activeLocale] as Dictionary<string, object>;
var translation = locale[key] as string;
Dead simple.

Super simple Json parsing for Json strings like: { "name1": "David", "name2": "David" }. If you don't need to handle quoted commas and colons, eg {"weapons":"gun,mashine gun,supergun:2"} - change Regex.Split to simple String.Split.
private Dictionary<string, string> ParseJson(string content)
{
content = content.Trim(new[] { '{', '}' }).Replace('\'', '\"');
var trimmedChars = new[] { ' ','\"' };
//regex to split only unquoted separators
Regex regxComma = new Regex(",(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*(?![^\"]*\"))");
Regex regxColon = new Regex(":(?=(?:[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\")*(?![^\"]*\"))");
return regxComma.Split(content)
.Select(v => regxColon.Split(v))
.ToDictionary(v => v.First().Trim(trimmedChars), v => v.Last().Trim(trimmedChars));
}

Deserialize JSON array into string array

Say I have a string representing an array of objects in JSON form:
string s = "[{\"name\":\"Person1\"},{\"name\":\"Person2\"}]";
What I want is an array of strings, each string being the string representation of a JSON object - NOT the object itself. It should look something like this:
string[] s = new string[]
{
"{\"name\":\"Person1\"}",
"{\"name\":\"Person2\"}"
};
1) Almost every search I attempt pulls up millions of results on how to simply deserialize a JSON string using (eg) Json.NET. This is not what I want to do.
2) I have tried building a class representing the objects to temporarily loop through a deserialize/serialize mapping each to a string in an array, but the schema for the objects is variable (hence why I only need a string representation).
3) I have attempted a few regex to try and do this, but my JSON string can contain fields that contain JSON strings as their value (icky, but out of my control) and so nested character escaping etc drove me partially mad before I decided to beg for help here.
Surely this should be simple? Anybody got any pointers?

You'll need to deserialize it, and then serialize each object independently.
For example (using Newtonsoft.Json):
string json = "[{\"name\":\"Person1\"},{\"name\":\"Person2\"}]";
var objects = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<object>>(json);
var result = objects.Select(obj => JsonConvert.SerializeObject(obj)).ToArray();
Yields (as a string[]):
{"name":"Person1"}
{"name":"Person2"}
If you try to avoid deserializing and serializing, you're almost certain to run into an edge case that will break your code.

string s = "[{\"name\":\"Person1\"},{\"name\":\"Person2\"}]";
var Json = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<object>>(s);
string[] Jsonn = Json.Select(x => x.ToString()).ToArray();
[] Jsonn returns string array instead of object array with JObject formatted.
Hope this one help you.

Why don't you just use this
string s = "[{\"name\":\"Person1\"},{\"name\":\"Person2\"}]";
string[] t = s.Split(',');
I tried it. It simply gives you string array as you want it....

Regex to replace JSON structure

I have JSON text like this :
...
"simples":{
"AS100ELABQVKANID-91057":{
"meta":{
"sku":"AS100ELABQVKANID-91057",
"price":"3669000.00",
"original_price":"3379000.00",
"special_to_date":"2015-03-19 23:59:59",
"shipment_type":"1",
"special_price":"3299000.00",
"tax_percent":"10.00",
"sourceability":"Sourceable",
"quantity":"15",
"variation":"...",
"package_type_position":"0",
"min_delivery_time":"1",
"max_delivery_time":"3",
"attribute_set_name":"electronics",
"3hours_shipment_available":false,
"estimated_delivery":"",
"estimated_delivery_position":""
},
"attributes":{
"package_type":"Parcel"
}
}
},
"description":
...
The above text appears repeatedly in my JSON text. I am trying to build every result to this :
"simples":[],"description"
So far, I have made this regex :
\"simples\":{(?:.*v(?:|=)|(?:.*)?)},\"description\"
But the result is cut everything from my first "simples" into last "description".
Regex newbie here.
Thanks in advance

I recommend parsing the JSON, replacing the value, then re-stringifying it
var obj = JSON.parse(json);
obj.simples = [];
json = JSON.stringify(obj);
Using a regexp for this is pure insanity

Don't use Regex to parse JSON; use a JSON parser.
Here is how you can do this using JSON.Net, assuming the object containing simples is part of a flat list of results:
JArray array = JArray.Parse(json);
foreach (JObject obj in array)
{
obj["simples"].Parent.Remove();
}
json = array.ToString();
If your JSON is more complicated (i.e. "simples" can appear at more than one level in the JSON), then you will need a recursive search to find and remove it. This answer has a helper method that can find a specific property by name anywhere in the JSON and return a list of all occurrences. Once you have the list of occurrences, you can then loop through them and remove them as shown above.