Is polymorphic deserialization possible in System.Text.Json?
The answer is yes and no, depending on what you mean by “possible”.
There is no polymorphic deserialization (equivalent to Newtonsoft.Json’s TypeNameHandling
) support built-in to System.Text.Json
. This is because reading the .NET type name specified as a string within the JSON payload (such as $type
metadata property) to create your objects is not recommended since it introduces potential security concerns (see https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/41347#issuecomment-535779492 for more info).
Allowing the payload to specify its own type information is a common source of vulnerabilities in web applications.
However, there is a way to add your own support for polymorphic deserialization by creating a JsonConverter<T>
, so in that sense, it is possible.
The docs show an example of how to do that using a type discriminator property:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/system-text-json-converters-how-to#support-polymorphic-deserialization
Let’s look at an example.
Say you have a base class and a couple of derived classes:
public class BaseClass
{
public int Int { get; set; }
}
public class DerivedA : BaseClass
{
public string Str { get; set; }
}
public class DerivedB : BaseClass
{
public bool Bool { get; set; }
}
You can create the following JsonConverter<BaseClass>
that writes the type discriminator while serializing and reads it to figure out which type to deserialize. You can register that converter on the JsonSerializerOptions
.
public class BaseClassConverter : JsonConverter<BaseClass>
{
private enum TypeDiscriminator
{
BaseClass = 0,
DerivedA = 1,
DerivedB = 2
}
public override bool CanConvert(Type type)
{
return typeof(BaseClass).IsAssignableFrom(type);
}
public override BaseClass Read(
ref Utf8JsonReader reader,
Type typeToConvert,
JsonSerializerOptions options)
{
if (reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.StartObject)
{
throw new JsonException();
}
if (!reader.Read()
|| reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.PropertyName
|| reader.GetString() != "TypeDiscriminator")
{
throw new JsonException();
}
if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.Number)
{
throw new JsonException();
}
BaseClass baseClass;
TypeDiscriminator typeDiscriminator = (TypeDiscriminator)reader.GetInt32();
switch (typeDiscriminator)
{
case TypeDiscriminator.DerivedA:
if (!reader.Read() || reader.GetString() != "TypeValue")
{
throw new JsonException();
}
if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.StartObject)
{
throw new JsonException();
}
baseClass = (DerivedA)JsonSerializer.Deserialize(ref reader, typeof(DerivedA));
break;
case TypeDiscriminator.DerivedB:
if (!reader.Read() || reader.GetString() != "TypeValue")
{
throw new JsonException();
}
if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.StartObject)
{
throw new JsonException();
}
baseClass = (DerivedB)JsonSerializer.Deserialize(ref reader, typeof(DerivedB));
break;
default:
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.EndObject)
{
throw new JsonException();
}
return baseClass;
}
public override void Write(
Utf8JsonWriter writer,
BaseClass value,
JsonSerializerOptions options)
{
writer.WriteStartObject();
if (value is DerivedA derivedA)
{
writer.WriteNumber("TypeDiscriminator", (int)TypeDiscriminator.DerivedA);
writer.WritePropertyName("TypeValue");
JsonSerializer.Serialize(writer, derivedA);
}
else if (value is DerivedB derivedB)
{
writer.WriteNumber("TypeDiscriminator", (int)TypeDiscriminator.DerivedB);
writer.WritePropertyName("TypeValue");
JsonSerializer.Serialize(writer, derivedB);
}
else
{
throw new NotSupportedException();
}
writer.WriteEndObject();
}
}
This is what serialization and deserialization would look like (including comparison with Newtonsoft.Json):
private static void PolymorphicSupportComparison()
{
var objects = new List<BaseClass> { new DerivedA(), new DerivedB() };
// Using: System.Text.Json
var options = new JsonSerializerOptions
{
Converters = { new BaseClassConverter() },
WriteIndented = true
};
string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(objects, options);
Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
/*
[
{
"TypeDiscriminator": 1,
"TypeValue": {
"Str": null,
"Int": 0
}
},
{
"TypeDiscriminator": 2,
"TypeValue": {
"Bool": false,
"Int": 0
}
}
]
*/
var roundTrip = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<List<BaseClass>>(jsonString, options);
// Using: Newtonsoft.Json
var settings = new Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializerSettings
{
TypeNameHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.TypeNameHandling.Objects,
Formatting = Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.Indented
};
jsonString = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(objects, settings);
Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
/*
[
{
"$type": "PolymorphicSerialization.DerivedA, PolymorphicSerialization",
"Str": null,
"Int": 0
},
{
"$type": "PolymorphicSerialization.DerivedB, PolymorphicSerialization",
"Bool": false,
"Int": 0
}
]
*/
var originalList = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<BaseClass>>(jsonString, settings);
Debug.Assert(originalList[0].GetType() == roundTrip[0].GetType());
}
Here’s another StackOverflow question that shows how to support polymorphic deserialization with interfaces (rather than abstract classes), but a similar solution would apply for any polymorphism:
Is there a simple way to manually serialize/deserialize child objects in a custom converter in System.Text.Json?