C#•12mo ago

✅ How to serialize IEnumerable<T> to json?

I have following:

public IReadOnlyList<MessageQueueConsumeResultHeader>? Headers { get; init; }

public abstract class MessageQueueConsumeResultHeader
  {
    public abstract string Key { get; }

    public abstract byte[] GetValueBytes();

    public override string ToString()
    {
      return this.Key + " (" + string.Join<byte>(",", (IEnumerable<byte>) this.GetValueBytes()) + ")";
    }
  }

public IReadOnlyList<MessageQueueConsumeResultHeader>? Headers { get; init; }

public abstract class MessageQueueConsumeResultHeader
  {
    public abstract string Key { get; }

    public abstract byte[] GetValueBytes();

    public override string ToString()
    {
      return this.Key + " (" + string.Join<byte>(",", (IEnumerable<byte>) this.GetValueBytes()) + ")";
    }
  }

and I want to get following: " { "Key": "GetValueBytes()", ... } "
how can I do it?

16 Replies

SWEETPONYOP•12mo ago

I can do this:

public static class MessageQueueConsumeResultHeaderExtensions
{
    public static string ToJson(this IReadOnlyList<MessageQueueConsumeResultHeader>? headers)
    {
        if (headers == null || headers.Count == 0)
        {
            return "{}";
        }

        var result = new StringBuilder();
        result.AppendLine("{");
        foreach (var header in headers)
        {
            result.AppendLine($"  \"{header.Key}\": \"{string.Join(",", header.GetValueBytes())}\",");
        }
        result.Length--; // Remove the trailing comma
        result.AppendLine("}");
        return result.ToString();
    }
}

public static class MessageQueueConsumeResultHeaderExtensions
{
    public static string ToJson(this IReadOnlyList<MessageQueueConsumeResultHeader>? headers)
    {
        if (headers == null || headers.Count == 0)
        {
            return "{}";
        }

        var result = new StringBuilder();
        result.AppendLine("{");
        foreach (var header in headers)
        {
            result.AppendLine($"  \"{header.Key}\": \"{string.Join(",", header.GetValueBytes())}\",");
        }
        result.Length--; // Remove the trailing comma
        result.AppendLine("}");
        return result.ToString();
    }
}

but it looks bad

Chiyoko_S•12mo ago

JsonConverter serializes dictionaries as key-value pairs just fine so perhaps make the collection type into a dictionary? cleaner way would be to write a custom converter otherwise

cap5lut•12mo ago

iirc IEnumerable<byte> will be serialized into a json array of numbers, byte[] will result in a base64 encoded string, the proper answer is a custom converter

Chiyoko_S•12mo ago

no I meant something on the line of exposing Headers as IReadOnlyDictionary<string, byte[]>

cap5lut•12mo ago

yeah, that would result in "header1": "base64-encoded-byte-array", while ⤴️ would be "header1": "1,254,4,6,127"

Chiyoko_S•12mo ago

ahhh so they do want it as a comma-separated list of values why though you'd need a custom converter then why though

cap5lut•12mo ago

tbh i like neither variant 😂 i would prefer a simple hex string without delimiters for such stuff, but i guess base64 is at least not that a** long

Chiyoko_S•12mo ago

hex string would get much longer than base64! and I don't think it really adds any benefit apart from being easy to parse, so... why?

cap5lut•12mo ago

i was working on a project for a long time where i had to write some test packets (had to do with reverse engineering a network protocol), guess i got used to hex in json because of that was a lot of fiddling around, adding similar packets (if it were stored binary i would have taken a hex editor for that), where u simply edited the description, some bytes and that was it later the guy i did work together on that wrote a whole GUI tool and stored the whole thing as binary blob but also with some more helpful visualization on the data

SWEETPONYOP•12mo ago

unfortunately I can't change IEnumerable to IReadOnlyDictionary catshy

hm maybe I can do smth like.. Headers.ToDictionary(header => header.Key, header => header.GetValueBytes())

var map = context.Headers?.ToDictionary(x => x.Key, x => x.GetValueBytes());
var result = JsonSerializer.Serialize(map);

var map = context.Headers?.ToDictionary(x => x.Key, x => x.GetValueBytes());
var result = JsonSerializer.Serialize(map);

Chiyoko_S•12mo ago

I would suggest using a custom converter

SWEETPONYOP•12mo ago

smth like this: https://www.newtonsoft.com/json/help/html/CustomJsonConverter.htm?

Chiyoko_S•12mo ago

are you using S.T.Json?

Unknown User•12mo ago

Message Not Public

Chiyoko_S•12mo ago

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/system-text-json/converters-how-to?pivots=dotnet-8-0

How to write custom converters for JSON serialization - .NET

Learn how to create custom converters for the JSON serialization classes that are provided in the System.Text.Json namespace.

SWEETPONYOP•12mo ago

ok, thanks!

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