How do I deserialize a JSON array and ignore the root node?

Question

I have next response from server -

{"response":[{"uid":174952xxxx,"first_name":"xxxx","last_name":"xxx"}]}

I am trying to deserialize this in next way -

JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<T>(json);

Where T = List of VkUser, but I got error.

[JsonObject]
public class VkUser
{
    [JsonProperty("uid")]
    public string UserId { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty("first_name")]
    public string FirstName { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty("last_name")]
    public string LastName { get; set; }
}

I always tryed

public class SomeDto // maybe Response as class name will fix it but I don't want such name
{
    public List<VkUser> Users {get;set;}
}

What deserialization options can help me?

Cannot deserialize the current JSON object (e.g. {"name":"value"}) into type 'System.Collections.Generic.List`1[Oauth.Vk.Dto.VkUserApi.VkUser]' because the type requires a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) to deserialize correctly. To fix this error either change the JSON to a JSON array (e.g. [1,2,3]) or change the deserialized type so that it is a normal .NET type (e.g. not a primitive type like integer, not a collection type like an array or List<T>) that can be deserialized from a JSON object. JsonObjectAttribute can also be added to the type to force it to deserialize from a JSON object. — tony
– tony, Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 15:55

Alberto · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-06 16:24:37Z

56

Use SelectToken:

string s =  "{\"response\":[{\"uid\":174952,\"first_name\":\"xxxx\",\"last_name\":\"xxx\"}]}";

var users = JObject.Parse(s).SelectToken("response").ToString();

var vkUsers = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<VkUser>>(users);

as pointed out by Brian Rogers, you can use ToObject directly:

var vkUsers = JObject.Parse(s).SelectToken("response").ToObject<List<VkUser>>();

edited Jan 6, 2014 at 16:24

answered Jan 6, 2014 at 16:03

Alberto

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2 Comments

Brian Rogers Over a year ago

Instead of converting the selected token back to a string and then re-parsing it, it would be better to use ToObject<List<VkUser>>() to convert the selected token directly to the final result.

Lalji Dhameliya Over a year ago

your answer generate error. if your data contains only one result then it generate error because it not array of object its single object

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