joelverhagen / StandardSerializer

A contract resolver for Json.NET to make making serializing property names simpler.

StandardSerializer

A contract resolver for Json.NET to make making serializing property names simpler.

.NET properties are typically written in Pascal case (e.g. MyProperty). Many JSON properties are written in a lowercase, underscore-delimited form (e.g. my_property). This leads to headaches when consuming some web API endpoints that serve out JSON because the property names don't automatically deserialize to your wonderful C# models.

If you are writing .NET code to consume JSON and you're using Json.NET (Newtonsoft.Json on NuGet), maybe you've got lucky with the default contract serializer... more likely is that you've annotated the heck out of your models with [JsonPropertyAttribute][2]. This leads to a lot of annoyance and really clouds up your model with mundain details like serialization. Bah!

[2]: http://james.newtonking.com/json/help/index.html?topic=html/T_Newtonsoft_Json_JsonPropertyAttribute.htm)

This library tries to give you all the flexibility you need to avoid JsonPropertyAttribute in your models while still allowing you to consume that juicy JSON.

Installation

To install StandardSerializer, run the following command in the Package Manager Console:

PM> Install-Package Knapcode.StandardSerializer

Example

using System;
using Knapcode.StandardSerializer;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

namespace Example
{
    public class Developer
    {
        public string Name { get; set; }

        public bool IsCSSNoob { get; set; }
    }

    public static class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            string json = "{'name': 'Joel', 'is_css_noob': true}";

            var resolver = new StandardContractResolver
            {
                // split the property into words by camel case and acronyms
                WordSplitOptions =
                    WordSplitOptions.SplitCamelCase |
                    WordSplitOptions.SplitAcronyms,

                // each output word should be lowercase
                CapitalizationOptions = CapitalizationOptions.AllLowercase,

                // join the words by underscores
                WordDelimiter = "_"
            };

            var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings
            {
                ContractResolver = resolver
            };

            var d = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Developer>(json, settings);

            Console.WriteLine(
                "{0} is {1} a CSS noob.",
                d.Name,
                d.IsCSSNoob ? "pretty much" : "not");
        }
    }
}