Underscores in JSON Property Names When Returning Serialized Object RSS

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  richmiller

  Member

  40 Points

  51 Posts

  Underscores in JSON Property Names When Returning Serialized Object

  Aug 17, 2012 06:03 PM|LINK

  Is there any way to tell the JSON.Net formatter to write the names of object properties without the leading underscores when serializing an object for return from a Web API call?

  I have the following VB.NET class:

  Public Class Account
  
          <JsonProperty(PropertyName:="ID")>
          Public Property ID() As Guid
  
          <JsonProperty(PropertyName:="Name")>
          Public Property Name() As String = String.Empty
  
          <JsonProperty(PropertyName:="Type")>
          Public Property [Type]() As String = String.Empty
  
          <JsonProperty(PropertyName:="Properties")>
          Public Property Properties() As Dictionary(Of String, String) = New Dictionary(Of String, String)()
  
          <JsonProperty(PropertyName:="DateCreated")>
          Public Property DateCreated() As DateTime = DateTime.UtcNow
  
          <JsonProperty(PropertyName:="LastUpdatedDate")>
          Public Property LastUpdatedDate() As DateTime = DateTime.UtcNow
  
          <JsonProperty(PropertyName:="IsActive")>
          Public Property IsActive() As Boolean = True
  
      End Class

  I return a new Account object in the body of my response after a POST like this:

          <HttpPost()>
          Public Function Post(ByVal newAccount As PostAccount) As HttpResponseMessage
              Try
                  Dim accountToAdd As Account = New Account()
                  With accountToAdd
                      .ID = System.Guid.NewGuid()
                      .IsActive = newAccount.IsActive
                      .Name = newAccount.Name
                      .Type = "GROUP"
                      For Each key As String In newAccount.Properties.Keys
                          .Properties.Add(key, newAccount.Properties(key))
                      Next
                  End With
  
                  _accounts.Add(accountToAdd)
  
                  Dim resp As HttpResponseMessage = Request.CreateResponse(Of Account)(HttpStatusCode.Created, accountToAdd)
                  resp.Headers.Location = New Uri(Url.Link("DefaultAPI", New With {.id = accountToAdd.ID}))
                  Return resp
              Catch ex As Exception
                  Dim errorMessages As List(Of String) = New List(Of String)()
                  errorMessages.Add(ex.Message)
                  Dim resp As HttpResponseMessage = Request.CreateResponse(Of List(Of String))(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest, errorMessages)
                  Return resp
              End Try
          End Function
  

  And I wind up getting the following JSON as a response to my POST:

  HTTP/1.1 201 Created
  Content-Length: 251
  Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
  Location: http://localhost:8080/accounts/ca6cd110-a35b-4e15-ae2e-4da3f56f6a7b
  Server: Microsoft-HTTPAPI/2.0
  Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:42:45 GMT
  
  {
    "_ID": "ca6cd110-a35b-4e15-ae2e-4da3f56f6a7b",
    "_Name": "New Account",
    "_Type": "GROUP",
    "_Properties": {},
    "_DateCreated": "2012-08-17T17:42:40.5615627Z",
    "_LastUpdatedDate": "2012-08-17T17:42:40.5615627Z",
    "_IsActive": true
  }

  I'd rather that my properties were named "ID" and "Name" instead of "_ID" and "_Name".  Does anyone have any suggestions about how to make that happen?

  Thanks,

  Rich
  
  
  
  

  Json

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  richmiller

  Member

  40 Points

  51 Posts

  Re: Underscores in JSON Property Names When Returning Serialized Object

  Aug 17, 2012 06:34 PM|LINK

  Found the solution:  I was missing the JsonObject attribute on my class.  Without it, the property names are preceded by underscores.  After adding the attribute, the underscores went away.

  Rich

  Json