Byte array serialization in JSON.NET
- by Daniel Earwicker
Given this simple class:
class HasBytes
{
public byte[] Bytes { get; set; }
}
I can round-trip it through JSON using JSON.NET such that the byte array is base-64 encoded:
var bytes = new HasBytes { Bytes = new byte[] { 1, 2, 3, 4 } };
// turn it into a JSON string
var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(bytes);
// get back a new instance of HasBytes
var result1 = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<HasBytes>(json);
// all is well
Debug.Assert(bytes.Bytes.SequenceEqual(result1.Bytes));
But if I deserialize this-a-wise:
var result2 = (HasBytes)new JsonSerializer().Deserialize(
new JTokenReader(
JToken.ReadFrom(new JsonTextReader(
new StringReader(json)))),
typeof(HasBytes));
... it throws an exception, "Expected bytes but got string".
What other options/flags/whatever would need to be added to the "complicated" version to make it properly decode the base-64 string to initialize the byte array?
Obviously I'd prefer to use the simple version but I'm trying to work with a CouchDB wrapper library called Divan, which sadly uses the complicated version, with the responsibilities for tokenizing/deserializing widely separated, and I want to make the simplest possible patch to how it currently works.
