Accessing JSON Data

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To access JSON data while building a report, you can pass a JsonDataSource instance to the engine as a data source.

Using of JsonDataSource enables you to work with typed values of JSON elements in template documents. For more convenience, the set of simple JSON types is extended as follows:

  • Int64?
  • Double?
  • Boolean?
  • DateTime?
  • String

Note – Working with complex JSON types (objects and arrays) is also supported.

While loading data to JsonDataSource, the engine performs JSON deserialization and generates corresponding internal objects. So, in template documents, a JsonDataSource instance should be treated according to what a root JSON element represents.

If a root JSON element is an object, a JsonDataSource instance should be treated as an object as well as shown in the following example.

JSON

{
	Name: "John Doe",
	Age: 30,
	Birth: "1989-04-01 4:00:00 pm",
	Child: [ "Ann Doe", "Charles Doe" ]
}

Template document

Name: <<[Name]>>, Age: <<[Age]>>, Date of Birth: <<[Birth]:"dd.MM.yyyy">>

Children:
<<foreach [in Child]>><<[Child_Text]>>
<</foreach>>

Source code

Document doc = ...              // Loading a template document.
JsonDataSource dataSource = ... // Loading JSON.

ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, dataSource);

Result document

Name: John Doe, Age: 30, Date of Birth: 01.04.1989

Children:
Ann Doe
Charles Doe

Note – To reference a JSON object property that is an array of simple-type values, the name of the property (for example, “Child”) should be used in a template document, whereas the same name with the “_Text” suffix (for example, “Child_Text”) should be used to reference the value of an item of this array.

If a root JSON element is an array, a JsonDataSource instance should be treated as a sequence of items of this array as shown in the following example.

JSON

[
	{
		Name: "John Doe",
		Age: 30,
		Birth: "1989-04-01 4:00:00 pm"
	},
	{
		Name: "Jane Doe",
		Age: 27,
		Birth: "1992-01-31 07:00:00 am"
	},
	{
		Name: "John Smith",
		Age: 51,
		Birth: "1968-03-08 1:00:00 pm"
	}
]

Template document

<<foreach [in persons]>>Name: <<[Name]>>, Age: <<[Age]>>, Date of Birth: <<[Birth]:"dd.MM.yyyy">>
<</foreach>>

Average age: <<[persons.Average(p => p.Age)]>>

Source code

Document doc = ...              // Loading a template document.
JsonDataSource dataSource = ... // Loading JSON.

ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, dataSource, "persons");

Result document

Name: John Doe, Age: 30, Date of Birth: 01.04.1989
Name: Jane Doe, Age: 27, Date of Birth: 31.01.1992
Name: John Smith, Age: 51, Date of Birth: 08.03.1968

Average age: 36

By default, if a root JSON element is an object having only one property that is an object or array in turn, the engine does not generate an internal root object while loading JSON data. So, in template documents, such a JsonDataSource instance should be treated according to what this property represents instead. For instance, the following JSON snippets can be used to produce the same results in previous examples of this section respectively.

JSON 1

{
	Person:
	{
		Name: "John Doe",
		Age: 30,
		Birth: "1989-04-01 4:00:00 pm",
		Child: [ "Ann Doe", "Charles Doe" ]
	}
}

JSON 2

{
	Persons:
	[
		{
			Name: "John Doe",
			Age: 30,
			Birth: "1989-04-01 4:00:00 pm"
		},
		{
			Name: "Jane Doe",
			Age: 27,
			Birth: "1992-01-31 07:00:00 am"
		},
		{
			Name: "John Smith",
			Age: 51,
			Birth: "1968-03-08 1:00:00 pm"
		}
	]
}

However, if your scenario requires an internal object for a root JSON element to be always generated while loading data to JsonDataSource, you can force this as shown in the following code snippet.

JsonDataLoadOptions options = new JsonDataLoadOptions();
options.AlwaysGenerateRootObject = true;
JsonDataSource dataSource = new JsonDataSource(..., options);

The following example sums up typical scenarios involving nested JSON objects and arrays.

JSON

[
	{
		Name: "John Smith",
		Contract:
		[
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "A Company"
				},
				Price: 1200000
			},
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "B Ltd."
				},
				Price: 750000
			},
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "C & D"
				},
				Price: 350000
			}
		]
	},
	{
		Name: "Tony Anderson",
		Contract:
		[
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "E Corp."
				},
				Price: 650000
			},
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "F & Partners"
				},
				Price: 550000
			}
		]
	},
	{
		Name: "July James",
		Contract:
		[
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "G & Co."
				},
				Price: 350000
			},
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "H Group"
				},
				Price: 250000
			},
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "I & Sons"
				},
				Price: 100000
			},
			{
				Client:
				{
					Name: "J Ent."
				},
				Price: 100000
			}
		]
	}
]

Template document

<<foreach [in managers]>>Manager: <<[Name]>>
Contracts:
<<foreach [in Contract]>>- <<[Client.Name]>> ($<<[Price]>>)
<</foreach>>
<</foreach>>

Source code

Document doc = ...              // Loading a template document.
JsonDataSource dataSource = ... // Loading JSON.

ReportingEngine engine = new ReportingEngine();
engine.BuildReport(doc, dataSource, "managers");

Result document

Manager: John Smith
Contracts:
- A Company ($1200000)
- B Ltd. ($750000)
- C & D ($350000)

Manager: Tony Anderson
Contracts:
- E Corp. ($650000)
- F & Partners ($550000)

Manager: July James
Contracts:
- G & Co. ($350000)
- H Group ($250000)
- I & Sons ($100000)
- J Ent. ($100000)

For recognition of JSON simple values (null, boolean, number, integer, and string), the engine provides two modes: loose and strict. In the loose mode, types of JSON simple values are determined upon parsing of their string representations. In the strict mode, types of JSON simple values are determined from JSON notation itself. To see the main difference between the modes, consider the following JSON snippet.

{ prop: "123" }

In the loose mode, the type of prop is determined as an integer, whereas in the strict mode, it is determined as a string.

The loose mode is used by the engine by default to support more typed data representation options. However, in some scenarios, it can be more preferable to disable recognition of numbers and other JSON simple values from strings, for example, when you need to keep leading padding zeros in a string value representing a number. In this case, you can switch to the strict mode as shown in the following code snippet.

JsonDataLoadOptions options = new JsonDataLoadOptions();
options.SimpleValueParseMode = JsonSimpleValueParseMode.Strict;
JsonDataSource dataSource = new JsonDataSource(..., options);

Note – Parsing of date-time values does not depend on whether the loose or strict mode is used.

Recognition of date-time values is a special case, because JSON specification does not define a format for their representation. So, by default, while parsing date-time values from strings, the engine tries several formats in the following order:

  1. The ISO-8601 format (for values like “2015-03-02T13:56:04Z”)
  2. The Microsoft® JSON date-time format (for values like “/Date(1224043200000)/")
  3. All date-time formats supported for the current culture
  4. All date-time formats supported for the English USA culture
  5. All date-time formats supported for the English New Zealand culture

Although this approach is quite flexible, in some scenarios, you may need to restrict strings to be recognized as date-time values. You can achieve this by specifying one or several exact formats in the context of the current culture to be used while parsing date-time values from strings as shown in the following example.

List<String> formats = new List<String>();
formats.Add("MM/dd/yyyy");

JsonDataLoadOptions options = new JsonDataLoadOptions();
options.ExactDateTimeParseFormats = formats;
JsonDataSource dataSource = new JsonDataSource(..., options);

In this example, strings conforming the format “MM/dd/yyyy” are going to be recognized as date-time values while loading JSON, whereas the others are not (but see the following note).

In some scenarios, you may need to disable recognition of date-time values at all, for example, when you deal with strings containing already formatted date-time values, which you do not want to re-format using the engine. You can achieve this by setting the exact date-time parse formats to an empty list (but see the following note).

Note – Strings conforming the Microsoft® JSON date-time format (for example, “/Date(1224043200000)/") are always recognized as date-time values regardless of the exact date-time parse formats.

By default, the engine trims leading and trailing whitespaces for JSON string values while loading. However, you can instruct the engine to preserve the whitespaces as follows.

JsonDataLoadOptions options = new JsonDataLoadOptions();
options.PreserveSpaces = true;
JsonDataSource dataSource = new JsonDataSource(..., options);
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