Parse multilingual json file into C# dictionary

Question

How do I read into a C# dictionary, a multilingual json lexicon in the form:

[{
  "Top": {
    "de-DE": "Oben",
    "fr-FR": "haut"
  }
},    {
  "Football": {
    "de-DE": "Fußball",
  },
},
{
  "Taxi": {
  }
}]

In the json file there is a key, and for each supported language, a property and value. Where the word in the target language is the same as the key, there is no property for that language under that key in the json file.

At startup we load into a C# dictionary only those entries for the user language. In this snippet, the dictionary for German should be

Top, Oben
Football, Fußball
Taxi, Taxi

In French

Top, Haut
Football, Football,
Taxi, Taxi

How do I read the json file into a C# dictionary? The dictionary is not huge ... hundreds rather than millions of entries, so performance is not critical.

You go to QuickType.io , paste a sample of Json in and hit the button that generates C# :) (they also have a vs extension that allows you to paste Json into VS and it appears as c# code) — Caius Jard
– Caius Jard, Commented Feb 16, 2020 at 7:15
The JSON you posted is not valid JSON. Did you miss the square brackets? — Sir Rufo
– Sir Rufo, Commented Feb 16, 2020 at 7:27
If you can change the structure, you could use a slightly different (and IMHO much better) structure in this example on .net fiddle — Sir Rufo
– Sir Rufo, Commented Feb 16, 2020 at 7:47
@SirRufo I'm not sure how your example would work as we support multiple languages, so although where there is no entry for de-DE there might be an entry for fr-FR and other languages. A missing property for one language does not allow us to set the element to null. Perhaps I've misunderstood? — Vague
– Vague, Commented Feb 16, 2020 at 8:18

Sir Rufo · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-16 09:35:00Z

The types

public class LocalizationInfo : Dictionary<string, string>
{
    public LocalizationInfo() : base( StringComparer.InvariantCultureIgnoreCase ) { }
}

public class LocalizationItem : Dictionary<string, LocalizationInfo>
{ }

public class LocalizationCollection : List<LocalizationItem>
{
    public Dictionary<string, string> GetLocalizedDict( string cultureName )
    {
        if ( cultureName is null )
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException( nameof( cultureName ) );
        }

        return this
            .Where( e => e.Count == 1 )
            .Select( e => e.First() )
            .ToDictionary( e => e.Key, e => e.Value == null ? e.Key : e.Value.TryGetValue( cultureName, out var localizedValue ) ? localizedValue : e.Key );
    }

    public Dictionary<string, string> GetLocalizedDict( CultureInfo cultureInfo )
    {
        if ( cultureInfo is null )
        {
            throw new ArgumentNullException( nameof( cultureInfo ) );
        }

        return GetLocalizedDict(cultureInfo.Name);
    }

    public Dictionary<string, string> GetLocalizedDict(  )
    {
        return GetLocalizedDict( CultureInfo.CurrentCulture );
    }
}

and the use case

class Program
{
    static readonly string _json =
        "[{" + Environment.NewLine +
        "  \"Top\": {" + Environment.NewLine +
        "    \"de-DE\": \"Oben\"," + Environment.NewLine +
        "    \"fr-FR\": \"haut\"" + Environment.NewLine +
        "  }" + Environment.NewLine +
        "},    {" + Environment.NewLine +
        "  \"Football\": {" + Environment.NewLine +
        "    \"de-DE\": \"Fußball\"" + Environment.NewLine +
        "  }" + Environment.NewLine +
        "}," + Environment.NewLine +
        "{" + Environment.NewLine +
        "  \"Taxi\": {" + Environment.NewLine +
        "  }" + Environment.NewLine +
        "}]";

    static void Main( string[] args )
    {
        var data = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<LocalizationCollection>( _json );

        var frDict = data.GetLocalizedDict( "fr-fr" );
        var deDict = data.GetLocalizedDict( "de-de" );

        var dict = data.GetLocalizedDict();
    }
}

and a live example

BTW

I had choosen a structure like this

{
  "Top": {
    "de-DE": "Oben",
    "fr-FR": "haut"
  },
  "Football": {
    "de-DE": "Fußball"
  },
  "Taxi": {}
}

There is no need for an array with objects which only contain a single property.

Krishna Varma · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-16 09:01:10Z

1

I assumed your JSON is List of Array

[
  {
    "Top": {
      "de-DE": "Oben",
      "fr-FR": "haut"
    }
  },
  {
    "Football": {
      "de-DE": "Fußball"
    }
  },
  {
    "Taxi": {
    }
  }
]

You can use JsonConvert.DeserializeObject to convert the json to Dictionary

var results = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Dictionary<string, object>>>(json);

//DE Dictionary
var deDict = results.SelectMany(x => x).ToDictionary(x => x.Key, x => JObject.Parse(x.Value.ToString())["de-DE"] == null ? "" : JObject.Parse(x.Value.ToString())["de-DE"].ToString());

//FR Dictionary
var frDict = results.SelectMany(x => x).ToDictionary(x => x.Key, x => JObject.Parse(x.Value.ToString())["fr-FR"] == null ? "" : JObject.Parse(x.Value.ToString())["fr-FR"].ToString());

//DE Dictionary     
foreach (var keyvalue in deDict)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{keyvalue.Key} : {keyvalue.Value}");
}

//FR Dictionary
foreach (var keyvalue in frDict)
{
    Console.WriteLine($"{keyvalue.Key} : {keyvalue.Value}");
}

OUTPUT

Top : Oben
Football : Fußball
Taxi :

Top : haut
Football :
Taxi :

edited Feb 16, 2020 at 9:01

answered Feb 16, 2020 at 8:39

Krishna Varma

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3 Comments

Vague Over a year ago

The output in this case is not a dictionary:key-value pairs

Krishna Varma Over a year ago

@Vague, I have updated the post to push the results to Dictionary

Krishna Varma Over a year ago

@Vague, does this answer your question?

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