List not updating with data from my json file

Question

I'm currently working on an assignment where I need to update a list with data from my json file. However my List keeps coming up as null and I can't seem to find why any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have been trying to look around, but many of the issues I have looked at just mention on how to pull the data not how to resolve this issue.

My classes and code:

public class input
{
    DateTime signed;
    DateTime portal;

    public DateTime Signed { get => signed; set => signed = value; }
    public DateTime Portal { get => portal; set => portal = value; }
}

public class InputCollection
{
    private List<input> inputs;

    public List<input> Inputs { get => inputs; set => inputs = value; }
}

using (StreamReader streamReader = new StreamReader("C:\\Users\\Dominik\\Documents\\SenateCodingExercise\\CodingAssignment\\CodingAssignment\\input.json"))
{
    //Reads all the data in the file
    string json = streamReader.ReadToEnd();
    //converting json string to a serious of objects
    InputCollection inputCollection = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<InputCollection>(json);
    Console.WriteLine(inputCollection.Inputs.Count);
}

My JSON file looks something like this:

{
  "Schmidt, Wayne": {
    "signed": "Friday, June 14, 2019 @ 10:58:21 PM"
  },
  "Hertel, Curtis": {
    "portal": "Wednesday, June 5, 2019 @ 10:30:36 AM"
  },
  "Daley, Kevin": {
    "signed": "Tuesday, June 4, 2019 @ 4:07:17 PM"
  }
}

What you *probably* want is to eliminate `InputCollection` entirely and deserialize to a `Dictionary` as shown in as shown in [How can I parse a JSON string that would cause illegal C# identifiers?](https://stackoverflow.com/a/24536564/3744182) or [Create a strongly typed c# object from json object with ID as the name](https://stackoverflow.com/a/34213724/3744182). But we can't say for sure without a complete, well-formed sample of your JSON. — dbc, Jul 11 '19 at 01:54
OK, deserializing to `Dictionary` has a problem, namely that the dates are in the wrong format: https://dotnetfiddle.net/R70kmK. If I change them to strings then everything works: https://dotnetfiddle.net/26Vvzm. Do you need to parse then as dates? — dbc, Jul 11 '19 at 02:00
Actually yes it did thank you! Yeah I'll have to parse them as dates, but that I can do. — Dominik Willaford, Jul 11 '19 at 02:09

dbc · Answer 1 · 2019-07-11T02:48:03.170

You can deserialize your JSON to a Dictionary<string, Input>, as shown in Deserialize a Dictionary and this answer to How can I parse a JSON string that would cause illegal C# identifiers?, however you will need to make a few modifications to account for your DateTime format.

Firstly, modify your Input model as follows:

public class Input
{
    public DateTime? Signed { get; set; }
    public DateTime? Portal { get; set; }
}

Then, deserialize and re-serialize using the settings below:

var settings = new JsonSerializerSettings
{
    // Account for the custom DateTime format.
    DateFormatString = "dddd, MMMM d, yyyy @ h:mm:ss tt",
    // Do not re-serialize null `DateTime?` properties.
    NullValueHandling = NullValueHandling.Ignore,
    // Convert named c# properties -- but not dictionary keys -- to camel case
    ContractResolver = new DefaultContractResolver { NamingStrategy = new CamelCaseNamingStrategy() },
};

var inputs = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Dictionary<string, Input>>(json, settings);

var outputJson = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(inputs, Formatting.Indented, settings);

Notes:

Since some of the JSON entries do not have both Signed and Portal values, making the c# properties be nullable allows you to track whether or not a value was actually present in the JSON.
I modified your class name Input to match c# naming conventions.
Json.NET supports custom DateTime formats via the JsonSerializerSettings.DateFormatString setting. Documentation for the various format options can be found in Custom date and time format strings.

Demo fiddle here.

List not updating with data from my json file

1 Answers1