how to format Json output?

Question

My web service responses has mimetype: "application/json" and my JSON outputs without spacing, like this

1

{"Data":{"Item":"123","Timestamp":"2011-11-24T17:50:43"}}

When the JSON should output like this

2

{
   "Data":{
      "Item":"123",
      "Timestamp":"2011-11-24T17:50:43"
   }
}

Is there any way I can fix the JSON format, so it appears like #2?

Solution 1

I wouldn't change the format written out by the web service, but if you want to format it for diagnostic purposes you can use Json.NET to do this very simply:

JObject json = JObject.Parse(text);
string formatted = json.ToString();

The result is automatically formatted. You could put this into a small tool - either a desktop tool or a web page somewhere. (I wouldn't be surprised if there were already online JSON formatters, although obviously you'd want to be careful about formatting sensitive data.)

Solution 2

Jon's answer doesn't seem to work if the root element of your json is an array. Using JToken instead of JObject fixed this for me. As an extension method on string, this looks like:

public static string FormatJson(this string json)
{
    return JToken.Parse(json).ToString();
}

Comments

[Diganta Kumar]

Fiddler from Telerik format the JSON response nicely.

[RomanKousta]

Why should I be careful about formatting sensitive data?

[Jon Skeet]

@ZinanXing: Look at the context of the sentence: online JSON formatters. If you've got private information about your customers, how do you think they'd feel about you submitting them (probably over HTTP) to some 3rd party website for formatting?

[RomanKousta]

@JonSkeet: Makes perfect sense.

[Nitin Sawant]

OP wants it to be done programatically using C#