Deserialize JSON string that supposed for object as string

Question

I need to serialize a string of JSON. But inside this string, it contains objects that I want to serialize as a string.

Look at this JSON string

{
    "action":"applyPromo",
    "params":
    [
        {
            "transacId":"M123238831",
            "promotionId":16,
            "promotionTypeId":1,
            "amount":100,
            "transacTime":"2021-03-19T12:00:30.045+10:00"
        }
    ]
}

Since the action can be anything, I need to store the params as a string which will be deserialized elsewhere.

Here is my class:

public class RequestAction
{
    public string action { get; set; }
    public string params { get; set; }

    public RequestAction()
    {
        action = params = string.Empty;
    }
}

When I tried to deserialize the string using JSON (Newtonsoft), I got this error: Unexpected character encountered while parsing value: [. Path 'params', line 1, position 27.'.

Here is my code to deserialize the JSON String

public static RequestAction Parse(str)
{
    return JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<RequestAction>(str);
}

Any idea how to deserialize params as string?

Answer 1

If I understood correctly, you need the params property as raw string. One way to achieve this is to use a JToken:

public class RequestAction
{
    public string Action { get; set; } = string.Empty;
    public JToken Params { get; set; }
}