JSON deserialize dictionaries with varying keys

Question

I'd like to deserialize some JSON strings like this:

    {"time":1506174868,"pairs":{
    "AAA":{"books":8,"min":0.1,"max":1.0,"fee":0.01},
    "AAX":{"books":8,"min":0.1,"max":1.0,"fee":0.01},
    "AQA":{"books":8,"min":0.1,"max":1.0,"fee":0.01}
    }}

where AAA, AAX, ... there are hundreds of variations

I paste this Json as class in VS2017 and get the following:

public class Rootobject
{
    public int time { get; set; }
    public Pairs pairs { get; set; }
}

public class Pairs
{
    public AAA AAA { get; set; }
    public AAX AAX { get; set; }
    public AQA AQA { get; set; }
}

public class AAA
{
    public int books { get; set; }
    public float min { get; set; }
    public float max { get; set; }
    public float fee { get; set; }
}

public class AAX
{
    public int books { get; set; }
    public float min { get; set; }
    public float max { get; set; }
    public float fee { get; set; }
}

public class AQA
{
    public int books { get; set; }
    public float min { get; set; }
    public float max { get; set; }
    public float fee { get; set; }
}

I'd try to avoid hundreds of class declarations since all classes are same except their name.

I tried to serialize this as array or list but I get exception since this is not an array.

I use Newtonsoft JSON lib.

Thank you

Answer 1

Sure, you can parse the json string to object as follows:

    public class Rootobject
{
    public int time { get; set; }
    public Dictionary<string, ChildObject> pairs { get; set; }
}

public class ChildObject
{

    public int books { get; set; }
    public float min { get; set; }
    public float max { get; set; }
    public float fee { get; set; }
}

class Program
{
    static string json = @"
        {""time"":1506174868,""pairs"":{
        ""AAA"":{""books"":8,""min"":0.1,""max"":1.0,""fee"":0.01},
        ""AAX"":{""books"":8,""min"":0.1,""max"":1.0,""fee"":0.01},
        ""AQA"":{""books"":8,""min"":0.1,""max"":1.0,""fee"":0.01}
        }
    }";

    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        Rootobject root = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Rootobject>(json);
        foreach(var child in root.pairs)
        {
            Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Key: {0}, books:{1},min:{2},max:{3},fee:{4}", 
                child.Key, child.Value.books, child.Value.max, child.Value.min, child.Value.fee));
        }

    }