James Newton-King
May 4 2008

Json.NET 2.0 Released

Public transportation is for jerks and lesbians. The final version of Json.NET 2.0 is now available for download. The notable new feature(?) of this release is Json.NET now includes documentation. I know, I am just as shocked as you are!

Json.NET - Quick Starts & API Documentation

Overall I am really proud of how Json.NET 2.0 has turned out. From a usability perspective the new LINQ to JSON API makes manually constructing and reading JSON considerably easier compared to the old JsonReader/JsonWriter approach. The JsonSerializer has also seen big user improvements. New settings and attributes allow a developer to have far greater control over the serialization/deserialization process.

Architecturally I am also pleased with Json.NET 2.0. LINQ to JSON builds on top of the existing Json.NET APIs and there was a lot of reuse between the different Json.NET components: JsonReader/Writer, JsonSerializer and the LINQ to JSON objects. Features that I thought might a lot of time and code to implement turned out to be quite simple when I realised I could reuse a class from somewhere else.

Changes

Here is a complete list of what has changed since Json.NET 1.3:

Json.NET 2.0 Final

  • New feature - Documentation.chm included in download. Contains complete API documentation and quick start guides to Json.NET.

Json.NET 2.0 Beta 3

  • New feature - Added JsonObjectAttribute with ability to opt-in or opt-out members by default.
  • New feature - Added Skip() method to JsonReader.
  • New feature - Added ObjectCreationHandling property to JsonSerializer.
  • Change - LOTS of little fixes and changes to the LINQ to JSON objects.
  • Change - CultureInfo is specified across Json.NET when converting objects to and from text.
  • Change - Improved behaviour of JsonReader.Depth property.
  • Change - GetSerializableMembers on JsonSerializer is now virtual.
  • Fix - Floating point numbers now use ToString("r") to avoid an overflow error when serializing and deserializing a boundary value.
  • Fix - JsonSerializer now correctly serializes and deserializes DBNull.
  • Fix - JsonSerializer no longer errors when skipping a multi-token JSON structure.
  • Fix - Clone a JToken if it already has a parent and is being added as a child to a new token

Json.NET 2.0 Beta 2

  • New feature - Added FromObject to JObject, JArray for creating LINQ to JSON objects from regular .NET objects.
  • New feature - Added support for deserializing to an anonymous type with the DeserializeAnonymousType method.
  • New feature - Support for reading, writing and serializing the new DateTimeOffset type.
  • New feature - Added IsoDateTimeConverter class. Converts DateTimes and DateTimeOffsets to and from the ISO 8601 format.
  • New feature - Added JavaScriptDateTimeConverter class. Converts DateTimes and DateTimeOffsets to and from a JavaScript date constructor.
  • New feature - XmlNodeConverter handles serializing and deserializing JavaScript constructors.
  • New feature - Ability to force XmlNodeConverter to write a value in an array. Logic is controlled by an attribute in the XML, json:Array="true".
  • New feature - JsonSerializer supports serializing to and from LINQ to JSON objects.
  • New feature - Added Depth property to JsonReader.
  • New feature - Added JsonTextReader/JsonNodeReader and JsonTextWriter/JsonNodeWriter.
  • Change - More concise LINQ to JSON querying API.
  • Change - JsonReader and JsonWriter are now abstract.
  • Change - Dates are now serialized in a JSON complient manner, similar to ASP.NET's JavaScriptSerializer or WCF's DataContractJsonSerializer.
  • Change - JsonSerializer will serialize null rather than throwing an exception.
  • Change - The WriteTo method on LINQ to JSON objects now support JsonConverters.
  • Fix - JsonTextReader correctly parses NaN, PositiveInfinity and NegativeInfinity constants.
  • Fix - JsonSerializer properly serializes IEnumerable objects.
  • Removed - AspNetAjaxDateTimeConverter. Format is no longer used by ASP.NET AJAX.
  • Removed - JavaScriptObject, JavaScriptArray, JavaScriptConstructor. Replaced by LINQ to JSON objects.

Json.NET 2.0 Beta 1

  • New feature - LINQ to JSON!
  • New feature - Ability to specify how JsonSerializer handles null values when serializing/deserializing.
  • New feature - Ability to specify how JsonSerializer handles missing values when deserializing.
  • Change - Improved support for reading and writing JavaScript constructors.
  • Change - A new JsonWriter can now write additional tokens without erroring.
  • Bug fix - JsonSerializer handles deserializing dictionaries where the key isn't a string.
  • Bug fix - JsonReader now correctly parses hex character codes.

Json.NET CodePlex Project

Json.NET 2.0 Download - Json.NET source code, binaries and documentation

kick it on DotNetKicks.com