JPoke

JPoke is a a simple library that allows construction or manipulation of JSON/YAML structured objects from the C# domain. For example:

var builder = JObjectBuilder.CreateEmpty();
builder.Set("settings[0].size",new {x=100,y=200});
builder.Copy("settings[0].size.x","config.initial_width");
Console.WriteLine(builder.ToJson());

{
  "config": {
	"initial_width": 100
  },
  "settings" : [ 
                  { 
                      "size": { 
                                  "x" : 100, 
                                  "y" : 200
                       }
                  
                ]
}

JPoke is able to construct intermediate nodes and elements as required.

Rationale

JPoke was written to support the VegaSharp library where the underlying Vega-Lite Json is too variable to allow simple mapping to C# structure equivalents and too deeply nested for dynamic objects to be useful.

Usage

Custom serialisation

JPoke does not support serialisation of custom types; however you can construct a JObjectBuilder from a serialised string and then use that as a value...

var jsonText = CustomSerializer.Deserialise(customObject);
var objectToBeInserted = JObjectBuilder.FromJson(jsonText);
builder.Set("complexNode",objectToBeInserted);

Construction

All object manipulation is done via a JObjectBuilder.

var builder = JObjectBuilder.CreateEmpty();
var builder = JObjectBuilder.FromJson(jsonString);
var builder = JObjectBuilder.FromObject(object); 

Writing

Values are set using "dotted" syntax to indicated structure and square brackets for array indices.

Values may be primitive types or structured objects. It is also possible set "serialised"

Examples:

var

builder.Set("settings[0].size",new {x=100,y=200});

Indexer syntax

[] [1] [+1] [-1]

Policies

ExtendArrays/NoExtend ArrayFillNull/ArrayFillEmpty/ArrayFillCopy/ArrayFillDefault (for primitives) OverwriteAllowed AutoConstruct

Conventions...

var builder = JObjectBuilder.FromJson();
var builder = JObjectBuilder.FromObject(object/JObjectBuilder/JsonNode)

var json = builder.ToJson(); //Serialize()
var object = builder.ToJsonNode();
var object = builder.Deserialize<T>();

Mutability

JObjectBuilder is mutable. All value objects/trees are cloned when setting nodes.

YAML

...to come