JSON not formatted correctly-CodePudding

Obisously I'm still learning how to create valid JSON but I'm struggling with this one. I was going to make a JSON file that I will create a list out of in my .Net application. What I'm looking to do is have a file of payroll codes specific for different companies. For each company I'm looking to have an array of codes that when I find the code in the array I would then use the Absence type as the friendly name. When I run it through a JSON validator it is complaining about the array brackets just after the company name. I'm betting it's something easy and intuitive to someone that knows JSON but I'm missing what I need to do. When I try to search on JSON and Arrays I can't find anything on how to use a nested array. Can someone give me an example or point me to information about nested arrays?

[
  {
    "Company1": {
      [
        {
          "PayCode": "SCK",
          "AbsenceType": "Illness"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "VAC",
          "AbsenceType": "Vacation"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "BRV",
          "AbsenceType": "Bereavement"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "JUR",
          "AbsenceType": "Jury Duty"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PER",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        }
      ]
    },
    "Company2": {
      [
        {
          "PayCode": "SCK",
          "AbsenceType": "Sick"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "VAC",
          "AbsenceType": "Vacation"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "BRV",
          "AbsenceType": "Bereavement"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "JUR",
          "AbsenceType": "Jury Duty"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PER",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PRNU",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        }
      ]
    }      
  }
]

CodePudding user response：

JSON is a key/value format. Your issue is that the arrays are inside of curly brackets ({}) which makes them a key, with no value.

    "Company1": { <-- Curly Bracket (Implies that data is in form of a hash (key/value) )
      [
        {
          "PayCode": "SCK",
          "AbsenceType": "Illness"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "VAC",
          "AbsenceType": "Vacation"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "BRV",
          "AbsenceType": "Bereavement"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "JUR",
          "AbsenceType": "Jury Duty"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PER",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        }
      ] <-- key ends with no value.
    },

I think you need to store the array for company one as just the array like so:

    "Company1": [ <-- The array is the value for company1
        {
          "PayCode": "SCK",
          "AbsenceType": "Illness"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "VAC",
          "AbsenceType": "Vacation"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "BRV",
          "AbsenceType": "Bereavement"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "JUR",
          "AbsenceType": "Jury Duty"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PER",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        }
      ] <-- key ends with no value.

This would be your whole file:

[
  {
    "Company1":[
        {
          "PayCode": "SCK",
          "AbsenceType": "Illness"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "VAC",
          "AbsenceType": "Vacation"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "BRV",
          "AbsenceType": "Bereavement"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "JUR",
          "AbsenceType": "Jury Duty"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PER",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        }
      ],
    "Company2":[
        {
          "PayCode": "SCK",
          "AbsenceType": "Sick"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "VAC",
          "AbsenceType": "Vacation"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "BRV",
          "AbsenceType": "Bereavement"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "JUR",
          "AbsenceType": "Jury Duty"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PER",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        },
        {
          "PayCode": "PRNU",
          "AbsenceType": "Personal"
        }
      ]
  }
]

CodePudding user response：

Matthias Lee json is valid , but you will not get much use of it since it can be only deserialized as a list of dictionaries. For a practical use you will probably need to convert it to list of c# classes. So it is better to create somethig like this

[
  {
    "Name": "Company1",
    "Accounts": [
      {
        "PayCode": "BRV",
        "AbsenceType": "Bereavement"
      },
      {
        "PayCode": "JUR",
        "AbsenceType": "Jury Duty"
      }
    ]
  },
  {
    "Name": "Company2",
    "Accounts": [
      {
        "PayCode": "SCK",
        "AbsenceType": "Sick"
      },
      {
        "PayCode": "VAC",
        "AbsenceType": "Vacation"
      }
    ]
  }
]

how to use

List<Company> companies=JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<Company>>(json);

public class Account
{
    public string PayCode { get; set; }
    public string AbsenceType { get; set; }
}
public class Company
{
    public string Name {get; set;} 
    public List<Account> Accounts { get; set; }
}