Json.Net And ActionResult

Question

Im building a JObject myself and want to return it as ActionResult. I dont want to create and then serialize a data object

For example

public ActionResult Test(string id)
{
      var res = new JObject();
      JArray array = new JArray();
      array.Add("Manual text");
      array.Add(new DateTime(2000, 5, 23));
      res["id"] = 1;
      res["result"] = array;
      return Json(res); //???????
}

Solution 1

You should just be able to do this in your action method:

return Content( res.ToString(), "application/json" );

Solution 2

In case, if you take care of JSON Formatting , just return JSON Formatted string

public string Test(string id)
{
      var res = new JObject();
      JArray array = new JArray();
      array.Add("Manual text");
      array.Add(new DateTime(2000, 5, 23));
      res["id"] = 1;
      res["result"] = array;
      return YourJSONSerializedString;
}

else Use built in JsonResult(ActionResult)

    public JsonResult Test(string id)
    {

          return Json(objectToConvert);
    }

Comments

[user692942]

@Liam this question came first so how can it be a duplicate? You've flagged the wrong question.

[NeatNerd]

how about response content type and other things u need to fill out to prepare proper response? U sure i can just throw string?

[Faisal]

I was trying to use Newtonsoft Json Serializer to resolve datetime issue and did not know how to return the string I have. Thanks a lot

[Faisal]

We need to add content type

[jpaugh]

This looks like a more robust way of handling it. Plus, you don't have to change your types from JsonResult to ActionResult.

[Craig W.]

@jpaugh, this post is over four years old at this point. The better way to handle this today is to use Web API rather than bending the MVC framework to build what is essentially a REST API. Also, I don't understand the second part of your statement. JsonResult is a subclass of ActionResult. Finally, writing more code to do what the framework will do for you automatically is never a good solution IMO.

[jpaugh]

There are a number of limitations in the built-in JSON serializer that Newtonsoft's JSON.NET overcomes, so this topic is still relevant. (And, while I can't change the version of the tech stack I'm on, I'm sure I'm not the only one 4 (or more) years behind the curve.)

[jpaugh]

My second statement was referring to the result type of the expression, which is ContentResult for the above; whereas I was already using JsonResult.