Unable to map JSON to class

August 11, 2022

I make a request to an external API and get JSON data back, the data returned is in the following format:

abnCallback({
    "Abn": "53660112345",
    "AbnStatus": "Active",
    "AbnStatusEffectiveFrom": "2022-06-16",
    "Acn": "660198745",
    "AddressDate": "2022-06-16",
    "AddressPostcode": "3000",
    "AddressState": "VIC",
    "BusinessName": [],
    "EntityName": "Company name pty ltd",
    "EntityTypeCode": "PRV",
    "EntityTypeName": "Private Company",
    "Gst": "2022-06-16",
    "Message": ""
})

I’m trying to map this to a model by doing the following:

var jsonString = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
var response = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<ABRPayloadSearchResults>(jsonString);

My model looks like this:

public class ABRPayloadSearchResults
{
    public string Abn { get; set; }
    public string AbnStatus { get; set; }
    public string AbnStatusEffectiveFrom { get; set; }
    public string Acn { get; set; }
    public string AddressDate { get; set; }
    public string AddressPostcode { get; set; }
    public string AddressState { get; set; }
    public object[] BusinessName { get; set; }
    public string EntityName { get; set; }
    public string EntityTypeCode { get; set; }
    public string EntityTypeName { get; set; }
    public string Gst { get; set; }
    public string Message { get; set; }
}

The issue I have is the returned JSON has abnCallBack( at the start which is preventing the json being mapped correctly to my class, has anyone had to handle this situation before?

>Solution :

This format is called JSONP. It wraps a JSON object in a (javascript) function call, which enables a browser to download the JSON via a <script>. This can be used to circumvent cross origin policies to load JSON from other domains.

I don’t believe there is a built-in way to deserialize JSONP in C#, but you should be able to manipulate the string quite easily to remove the function name and the brackets. See e.g. How to deserialize a JSONP response (preferably with JsonTextReader and not a string)?