Alter Json or ExtensionDataObject

I have a Json service I cannot alter as it is not mine. Their Json is a formatted in a way that parsing it is difficult. It looks something like this.

"people": {
     "Joe Bob": {
              "name": "Joe Bob",
              "id": "12345"
     },
     "Bob Smith": {
              "name": "Bob Smith",
              "id": "54321"
     }
 },

I would really prefer this was laid out like a JSon array, however it presently is not. I am wondering the best approach here. Should I alter the Json to look like an array before I parse it or load up the ExtensionData and parse it from that?

There are other items in the feed that I do not have issue with. Just stuck with this one section.

Thanks

Solution

You can use json.net to deserialize the data (the json you pasted, and doing only one parsing, without modifying anything).

using dynamic foo = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<dynamic>(data) than, you can iterate the list using foo.people, accessing the Name and Value.

you can create a class (if you know what the schema is, and to deserialize the data into a list of the given class such as:

    public class People
    {
        [JsonProperty(PropertyName="people")]
        public IDictionary<string, Person> Persons { get; set; }
    }

    public class Person
    {
        [JsonProperty(PropertyName="name")]
        public string Name { get; set; }

        [JsonProperty(PropertyName = "id")]
        public string Id { get; set; }
    }

and than call:

var obj = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<People>(data);
foreach (var item in obj.Persons.Values)
{
      //item is instance of Person      
}

Another good and possible option will be: How can I navigate any JSON tree in c#?