JsonPathSerializer

Class library that helps putting data incrementally to build a JSON string.

Summary

JsonPathSerializer is a class library that help C# code to build JSON objects incrementally, each time with a JsonPath and a value.

If you're familiar with JSON, you may know that you can use a JsonPath to query a JSON object:

{
  "name": [
	{
	  "first": "John",
	  "last": "Doe"
	},
	{
	  "first": "Jane",
	  "last": "Doe"
	}
  ]
}

If you want to access the value Jane in the above JSON object, you can use the JsonPath $.name[1].first. The JsonPath is a string that describes the path to the value you want to access.

But what if you're given raw data incrementally, and you want to build a structured JSON object from it?

You can use JsonPathSerializer to do that.

This class library can help:

• Automated tests to generate mock data.
• IoT devices to dynamically send back digested data on an interval.
• Web applications to build structured JSON objects from user input.
• And many more!

Requirements

• .NET 8.0 or higher (.NET 6.0 or higher or pre-1.0.0 versions).

• Newtonsoft.Json 13.0.1 or higher.

Setup

Install from NuGet

dotnet add package JsonPathSerializer

Build from source

git clone
dotnet build

Quick-demo

After downloading the class library, add the following using statement to your code:

using JsonPathSerializer;

Then, try the following code:

Dictionary<string, string> pathToValue = new Dictionary<string, string>()
{
    { "$.say.hello.world", "Hello world!" },
    { "$.say.hello.john", "Hello John!" },
    { "$.say.hi.jane", "Hi jane!" },
    { "$.say.hi.montreal[0]", "Salut Montreal!" },
    { "$.say.hi.montreal[1]", "Hi Montreal!" },
};

JsonPathManager manager = new JsonPathManager();
foreach (var pair in pathToValue)
{
    manager.Add(pair.Key, pair.Value);
}
Console.WriteLine(manager.Build());

Which gives:

{"say":{"hello":{"world":"Hello world!","john":"Hello John!"},"hi":{"jane":"Hi jane!","montreal":["Salut Montreal!","Hi Montreal!"]}}}

Or:

{
  "say": {
    "hello": {
      "world": "Hello world!",
      "john": "Hello John!"
    },
    "hi": {
      "jane": "Hi jane!",
      "montreal": [
        "Salut Montreal!",
        "Hi Montreal!"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For a more comprehensive feature list, please consult the wiki.

Feature Summary

JsonPathSerializer supports a combination of the following JsonPath tokens:

• Property, e.g. foo.key or ['foo']['key']
• Index, e.g. foo[1], [-2]
• Multiple indexes, e.g. [1,2], [-2, 3, 1]
• Index span, e.g. [1:3], [-1:], [:2]

For more use case information, please consult the wiki.

Constaints

The library currently does not support using wildcards or operations in the JsonPath. As they would create substantial ambiguity in defining what they would mean in the context of this library, I currently have no plans to support them. If such a need is present for you, please open an issue on GitHub and I will consider it given enough demand.

Release Notes

1.0.0

See v1.0.0 Changelog.

0.3.0

See v0.3.0 Changelog.

0.2.0

See v0.2.0 Changelog.

0.1.2

See v0.1.2 Changelog.

0.1.0 (Unstable)

Initial release.

Future Plans

I'm actively maintaining this library, so if you have any feature requests or bugs to report, please open an issue on GitHub.