How to serialize list of enum using their string value

Question

This is my enum type:

public enum AccessScope
{
    [JsonProperty("read_content")]
    ReadContent,

    [JsonProperty("write_content")]
    WriteContent,

    [JsonProperty("read_themes")]
    ReadThemes,

    [JsonProperty("write_themes")]
    WriteThemes
}  

I want to serialize this enum using the string values... when I try the following code, the numeric values are used for serialization:

[TestMethod]
public void Serialize_access_scopes()
{
    var requiredPermissions = new List<AccessScope>()
    {
        AccessScope.ReadContent,
        AccessScope.WriteContent,
    };

    var commaSeparatedPermissions = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(requiredPermissions);  

    commaSeparatedPermissions.Should().Be("read_content, write_content");
}

Answer 1

You could use the StringEnumConverter provided by Json.Net rather than defining a custom converter, along with using the EnumMemberAttribute instead of JsonPropertyAttribute.

For Example,

[JsonConverter(typeof(StringEnumConverter))]
public enum AccessScope
{
    [EnumMember(Value="read_content")]
    ReadContent,

    [EnumMember(Value="write_content")]
    WriteContent,

    [EnumMember(Value="read_themes")]
    ReadThemes,

    [EnumMember(Value="write_themes")]
    WriteThemes
} 

Now you can deserialize as

var requiredPermissions = new List<AccessScope>()
{
    AccessScope.ReadContent,
    AccessScope.WriteContent,
};

var result = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(requiredPermissions);

Output

["read_content","write_content"]