How to deserailise JSON Object in C# Without knowing structure

Is it possible to take a JSON object in C# that I read from from another source and convert the contents to files. The problem is I don’t know the structure of the incoming objects.

So far I’ve got this:

 var response = await client.GetAsync("https://blahblah/creds" +
     "?ApiKey=" + textBox_password.Text +
     "&deviceId=" + deviceId +
     "&modelNum=" + modelNum);

 var res = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
 var resJson = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(res);
 this.textBox_Stream.AppendText("responseBody = " + resJson + "\r\n"); 

Which gives me:

responseBody = {
  "statusCode": 200,
  "body": {
    "modelNum": "42",
    "creds": "[{\"deviceid.txt\":\"4DA23E\",\"pac.txt\":\"580795498743\"}]",
    "deviceId": "4DA23E"
  }
}

What I want to do is create a folder called 4DA23E and place one file inside it for each entry in the creds object.

device.txt will contain 4DA23E
pac.tct will contain 580795498743

etc. I can’t figure out a dynamic way to extract the stuff I need. Goes without saying, I am not a C# programmer! So, please be kind.

>Solution :

Don’t use JsonConvert.DeserializeObject. That’s best when you know the schema of the JSON object and you’ve made a corresponding C# model.

First, parse the outer response JSON

var res = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
JObject resJson = JObject.Parse(res);

Now pull out the value of the "creds" property and re-parse it.

var credsJsonRaw = resJson["body"]["creds"].Value<string>();
JArray credsJson = JArray.Parse(credsJsonRaw);

Now you can loop through each object in the array, and each property in each object.

foreach (JObject obj in credsJson)
{
    foreach (JProperty prop in obj.Properties)
    {
        Console.WriteLine($"Name = {prop.Name}");
        Console.WriteLine($"Value = {prop.Value.Value<string>()}");
    }
}

For your example, this prints

Name = deviceid.txt
Value = 4DA23E
Name = pac.txt
Value = 580795498743