Ok so I eventually solved my problem. If there are better ways please let me know :-)
public DataSet getData(string strFoo)
{
string url = "foo";
HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
HttpResponseMessage response;
DataSet dsTable = new DataSet();
try
{
//Gets the headers that should be sent with each request
client.DefaultRequestHeaders.Accept.Add(new MediaTypeWithQualityHeaderValue("application/json"));
//Returned JSON
response = client.GetAsync(url).Result;
//converts JSON to string
string responseJSONContent = response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().Result;
//deserializes string to list
var jsonList = DeSerializeJsonString(responseJSONContent);
//converts list to dataset. Bad name I know.
dsTable = Foo_ConnectAPI.ExtentsionHelpers.ToDataSet<RootObject>(jsonList);
//Returns the dataset
return dsTable;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
return null;
}
}
//deserializes the string to a list. Utilizes JSON.net. RootObject is a class that contains the get and set for the JSON elements
public List<RootObject> DeSerializeJsonString(string jsonString)
{
//Initialized the List
List<RootObject> list = new List<RootObject>();
//json.net deserializes string
list = (List<RootObject>)JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<RootObject>>(jsonString);
return list;
}
The RootObject contains the get set that will get the values of the JSON.
public class RootObject
{
//These string will be set to the elements within the JSON. Each one is directly mapped to the JSON elements.
//This only takes into account a JSON that doesn't contain nested arrays
public string EntityID { get; set; }
public string Address1 { get; set; }
public string Address2 { get; set; }
public string Address3 { get; set; }
}
The easiest way to create the above class(es) is to use json2charp which will format it accordingly and also provide the correct datatypes.
The following is from another answer on Stackoverflow
again it does not take into account nested JSON.
internal static class ExtentsionHelpers
{
public static DataSet ToDataSet<T>(this List<RootObject> list)
{
try
{
Type elementType = typeof(RootObject);
DataSet ds = new DataSet();
DataTable t = new DataTable();
ds.Tables.Add(t);
try
{
//add a column to table for each public property on T
foreach (var propInfo in elementType.GetProperties())
{
try
{
Type ColType = Nullable.GetUnderlyingType(propInfo.PropertyType) ?? propInfo.PropertyType;
t.Columns.Add(propInfo.Name, ColType);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}
try
{
//go through each property on T and add each value to the table
foreach (RootObject item in list)
{
DataRow row = t.NewRow();
foreach (var propInfo in elementType.GetProperties())
{
row[propInfo.Name] = propInfo.GetValue(item, null) ?? DBNull.Value;
}
t.Rows.Add(row);
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
}
insert.insertCategories(t);
return ds.
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
return null;
}
}
};
Then finally to insert the above dataset into a table with columns that were mapped to the JSON I utilized SQL bulk copy and the following class
public class insert
{
public static string insertCategories(DataTable table)
{
SqlConnection objConnection = new SqlConnection();
//As specified in the App.config/web.config file
objConnection.ConnectionString = System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["foo"].ToString();
try
{
objConnection.Open();
var bulkCopy = new SqlBulkCopy(objConnection.ConnectionString);
bulkCopy.DestinationTableName = "dbo.foo";
bulkCopy.BulkCopyTimeout = 600;
bulkCopy.WriteToServer(table);
return "";
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
System.Windows.Forms.MessageBox.Show(ex.Message);
return "";
}
finally
{
objConnection.Close();
}
}
};
So the above works to insert JSON from a webAPI into a database. This is something that I get to work. But by no means do I expect it to be perfect. If you have any improvements then please update it accordingly.
