How to create optimize json string

Question

1.00/5 (2 votes)

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Hello,

I want to create json string like this form my C# code like this :

[
["Joe", 42,185,"M"],
["Ann",40, 125, "F"]
]

Currently i am creating like this

[
{"Name":"Joe", "Age":"42","Weight":185,"Gender":"M"},
{"Name":"Ann", "Age":"40","Weight":125,"Gender":"F"}
]

I am reading the C# Data Table and creating the JSON list.

I don't want to repeat the field names so that the JSON data is of less size for better bandwidth.

Can any one help me.

What I have tried:

public static string getJSONString(DataTable dt)
{
System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer JSSerializer = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();
List<dictionary><string,>> dic = new List<dictionary><string,>>();
Dictionary<string,> newrow = null;
JSSerializer.MaxJsonLength = 2147483647;
//Code to loop each row in the datatable and add it to the dictionary object

dt.AcceptChanges();
string reqLink = "";

foreach (DataRow drow in dt.Rows)
{
newrow = new Dictionary<string,>();
foreach (DataColumn col in dt.Columns)
{
newrow.Add(col.ColumnName.Trim(), drow[col]);
}
dic.Add(newrow);
}
//Serialising the dictionary object to produce json output
return JSSerializer.Serialize(dic);
}

Posted 13-Jun-16 0:22am

Ajay_Saini

Updated 13-Jun-16 7:22am

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3 solutions

Solution 1

That's not json. If you want to use an optimised format to save space then simply write your own serialisation and deserialization code rather than using json libraries as those libraries won't handle the text you want as it isn't json. You can then pass your data as a plain string and deserialise it in your target method.

Posted 13-Jun-16 0:30am

F-ES Sitecore

Updated 13-Jun-16 0:31am

v2

Comments

Ajay_Saini 13-Jun-16 12:05pm

So can you share few example of that? Actually i am looking an approach so that i can avoid the field names in every result set to reduce the space.

F-ES Sitecore 13-Jun-16 12:20pm

Something like this

string text = "[\"Joe\", 42,185,\"M\"]";
string[] values = text.Split(new[] { ',' }, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries);

string name = TrimText(values[0]);
int age = int.Parse(TrimText(values[1]));
int weight = int.Parse(TrimText(values[2]));
string gender = TrimText(values[3]);

---

public string TrimText(string text)
{
return text.TrimStart(new[] { '[', '\"' }).TrimEnd(new[] { ']', '\"' });
}

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 13-Jun-16 13:26pm

Sorry, this is absolutely irrelevant and redundant thing.
—SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 13-Jun-16 13:27pm

Sorry, what you say is simply not true. This is JSON, too, only of a very different object.
Please see Solution 3.
—SA

F-ES Sitecore 14-Jun-16 4:26am

It isn't JSON, something having square brackets and commas doesn't make it JSON. Instead it is a way to define an array in javascript, however if you are sending that to .net code then .net can't interpret that as an array as easily as javascript can.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 14-Jun-16 11:18am

It is JSON. Please see my answer, reproduce the code if you want, and you will see.
What JSON.stringify returns is a JSON string.
—SA

Solution 2

try this

C#

public static string getJSONString(DataTable dt)
   {
       System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer JSSerializer = new System.Web.Script.Serialization.JavaScriptSerializer();

       List<List<object>> lst = new List<List<object>>();
       dt.AcceptChanges();

       foreach (DataRow drow in dt.Rows)
       {
           List<object> temp = new List<object>();
           foreach (DataColumn col in dt.Columns)
               temp.Add(drow[col]);
           lst.Add(temp);
       }
       return JSSerializer.Serialize(lst);

   }

Posted 13-Jun-16 2:18am

Karthik_Mahalingam

Comments

Ajay_Saini 13-Jun-16 12:08pm

In my code i have used dictionary and you are using list. So i am not sure if it will effect more in terms of space of retured JSON string.

Karthik_Mahalingam 13-Jun-16 12:10pm

List is light weight than dictionary

Ajay_Saini 13-Jun-16 12:15pm

Yes i new it, definitely it will reduce the time to convert the JSON but if the JSON sting takes approx 8 mb data then i can't utilize the bandwidth of network. And definitely if returned JSON string can be optimize or if any compression mechanism is available which client also understands then it will improve the performance.

Karthik_Mahalingam 13-Jun-16 12:23pm

AFAIK, you cannot compress data
what you can do is, apply pagination in view/html where the data is displayed.

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 13-Jun-16 13:25pm

It's always possible to compress data. The problem is the inquirer's misconception about it.
—SA

Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov 13-Jun-16 13:25pm

Sorry... There is absolutely no need to dot all. There is JSON native object. Worse, it does not help with apparent inquirer's misconception about JavaScript types and only than in JSON.
Please see Solution 3.
—SA

Ajay_Saini 13-Jun-16 22:35pm

The purpose is same to utilize the network bandwidth for huge data in any object that is traversing from server to client.
There is possiblity that i didn't share the problem that i am facing hence you are referring as misconception.
I had seen the solution 3 and will try the options may be it reduce some performance issues.

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Sergey Alexandrovich Kryukov · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-13T07:22:00

The problem is ill-posed; and the question simply makes no sense. There is no "optimized" or not-optimized JSON.

You are just talking about completely different JavaScript objects. Naturally, their serialized forms are different.
Compare:

JavaScript

var a = [1, "some text", null];
var b = {number: 1, text: "some text", reference: null};

var sA = JSON.stringify(a);
// sA becomes '[1,"some text",null]'
var sB = JSON.stringify(b);
// sB becomes '{"number":1,"text":"some text","reference":null}'

Those objects are both of the object types, but they are different. First object has properties named 0, 1 and 2. Indices are actually no different from properties, they just use specialized names. The second object has analogous properties named "number", "text" and "reference". Another difference is: first object, as an array, has property "length", which is not defined in the second one.

Please see:
JavaScript data types and data structures — JavaScript,
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/typeof,
Object — JavaScript,
Array — JavaScript,
JSON — JavaScript.

Now about compressing… what you though of is not compression at all; this is just having different objects. By the way, the "bigger" object is more preferable in most cases. You can compress and decompress any string, no matter if it is JSON or not. There is a number of libraries doing that. To name just a few:
GitHub — pieroxy/lz-string: LZ-based compression algorithm for JavaScript,
LZW javascript compress/decompress — GitHub,
see also Text Compression for Web Developers — HTML5 Rocks.

—SA