How to write .NET objects as JSON (serialize)

Article
10/25/2023

This article shows how to use the System.Text.Json namespace to serialize to JavaScript Object Notation (JSON). If you're porting existing code from Newtonsoft.Json, see How to migrate to System.Text.Json.

To write JSON to a string or to a file, call the JsonSerializer.Serialize method.

The following example creates JSON as a string:

using System.Text.Json;

namespace SerializeBasic
{
    public class WeatherForecast
    {
        public DateTimeOffset Date { get; set; }
        public int TemperatureCelsius { get; set; }
        public string? Summary { get; set; }
    }

    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            var weatherForecast = new WeatherForecast
            {
                Date = DateTime.Parse("2019-08-01"),
                TemperatureCelsius = 25,
                Summary = "Hot"
            };

            string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(weatherForecast);

            Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
        }
    }
}
// output:
//{"Date":"2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00","TemperatureCelsius":25,"Summary":"Hot"}

Dim jsonString As String

The JSON output is minified (whitespace, indentation, and new-line characters are removed) by default.

The following example uses synchronous code to create a JSON file:

using System.Text.Json;

namespace SerializeToFile
{
    public class WeatherForecast
    {
        public DateTimeOffset Date { get; set; }
        public int TemperatureCelsius { get; set; }
        public string? Summary { get; set; }
    }

    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            var weatherForecast = new WeatherForecast
            {
                Date = DateTime.Parse("2019-08-01"),
                TemperatureCelsius = 25,
                Summary = "Hot"
            };

            string fileName = "WeatherForecast.json"; 
            string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(weatherForecast);
            File.WriteAllText(fileName, jsonString);

            Console.WriteLine(File.ReadAllText(fileName));
        }
    }
}
// output:
//{"Date":"2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00","TemperatureCelsius":25,"Summary":"Hot"}

jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(weatherForecast1)
File.WriteAllText(fileName, jsonString)

The following example uses asynchronous code to create a JSON file:

using System.Text.Json;

namespace SerializeToFileAsync
{
    public class WeatherForecast
    {
        public DateTimeOffset Date { get; set; }
        public int TemperatureCelsius { get; set; }
        public string? Summary { get; set; }
    }

    public class Program
    {
        public static async Task Main()
        {
            var weatherForecast = new WeatherForecast
            {
                Date = DateTime.Parse("2019-08-01"),
                TemperatureCelsius = 25,
                Summary = "Hot"
            };

            string fileName = "WeatherForecast.json";
            await using FileStream createStream = File.Create(fileName);
            await JsonSerializer.SerializeAsync(createStream, weatherForecast);

            Console.WriteLine(File.ReadAllText(fileName));
        }
    }
}
// output:
//{"Date":"2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00","TemperatureCelsius":25,"Summary":"Hot"}

Dim createStream As FileStream = File.Create(fileName)
Await JsonSerializer.SerializeAsync(createStream, weatherForecast1)

The preceding examples use type inference for the type being serialized. An overload of Serialize() takes a generic type parameter:

using System.Text.Json;

namespace SerializeWithGenericParameter
{
    public class WeatherForecast
    {
        public DateTimeOffset Date { get; set; }
        public int TemperatureCelsius { get; set; }
        public string? Summary { get; set; }
    }

    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            var weatherForecast = new WeatherForecast
            {
                Date = DateTime.Parse("2019-08-01"),
                TemperatureCelsius = 25,
                Summary = "Hot"
            };

            string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize<WeatherForecast>(weatherForecast);

            Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
        }
    }
}
// output:
//{"Date":"2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00","TemperatureCelsius":25,"Summary":"Hot"}

jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(Of WeatherForecastWithPOCOs)(weatherForecast)

Serialization behavior

By default, all public properties are serialized. You can specify properties to ignore. You can also include private members.
The default encoder escapes non-ASCII characters, HTML-sensitive characters within the ASCII-range, and characters that must be escaped according to the RFC 8259 JSON spec.
By default, JSON is minified. You can pretty-print the JSON.
By default, casing of JSON names matches the .NET names. You can customize JSON name casing.
By default, circular references are detected and exceptions thrown. You can preserve references and handle circular references.
By default, fields are ignored. You can include fields.

When you use System.Text.Json indirectly in an ASP.NET Core app, some default behaviors are different. For more information, see Web defaults for JsonSerializerOptions.

Supported types include:

.NET primitives that map to JavaScript primitives, such as numeric types, strings, and Boolean.
User-defined plain old CLR objects (POCOs).
One-dimensional and jagged arrays (T[][]).
Collections and dictionaries from the following namespaces:
For more information, see Supported collection types in System.Text.Json.

You can implement custom converters to handle additional types or to provide functionality that isn't supported by the built-in converters.

Here's an example showing how a class that contains collection properties and a user-defined type is serialized:

using System.Text.Json;

namespace SerializeExtra
{
    public class WeatherForecast
    {
        public DateTimeOffset Date { get; set; }
        public int TemperatureCelsius { get; set; }
        public string? Summary { get; set; }
        public string? SummaryField;
        public IList<DateTimeOffset>? DatesAvailable { get; set; }
        public Dictionary<string, HighLowTemps>? TemperatureRanges { get; set; }
        public string[]? SummaryWords { get; set; }
    }

    public class HighLowTemps
    {
        public int High { get; set; }
        public int Low { get; set; }
    }

    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            var weatherForecast = new WeatherForecast
            {
                Date = DateTime.Parse("2019-08-01"),
                TemperatureCelsius = 25,
                Summary = "Hot",
                SummaryField = "Hot",
                DatesAvailable = new List<DateTimeOffset>() 
                    { DateTime.Parse("2019-08-01"), DateTime.Parse("2019-08-02") },
                TemperatureRanges = new Dictionary<string, HighLowTemps>
                    {
                        ["Cold"] = new HighLowTemps { High = 20, Low = -10 },
                        ["Hot"] = new HighLowTemps { High = 60 , Low = 20 }
                    },
                SummaryWords = new[] { "Cool", "Windy", "Humid" }
            };

            var options = new JsonSerializerOptions { WriteIndented = true };
            string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(weatherForecast, options);

            Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
        }
    }
}
// output:
//{
//  "Date": "2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00",
//  "TemperatureCelsius": 25,
//  "Summary": "Hot",
//  "DatesAvailable": [
//    "2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00",
//    "2019-08-02T00:00:00-07:00"
//  ],
//  "TemperatureRanges": {
//    "Cold": {
//      "High": 20,
//      "Low": -10
//    },
//    "Hot": {
//    "High": 60,
//      "Low": 20
//    }
//  },
//  "SummaryWords": [
//    "Cool",
//    "Windy",
//    "Humid"
//  ]
//}

Public Class WeatherForecastWithPOCOs
    Public Property [Date] As DateTimeOffset
    Public Property TemperatureCelsius As Integer
    Public Property Summary As String
    Public SummaryField As String
    Public Property DatesAvailable As IList(Of DateTimeOffset)
    Public Property TemperatureRanges As Dictionary(Of String, HighLowTemps)
    Public Property SummaryWords As String()
End Class

Public Class HighLowTemps
    Public Property High As Integer
    Public Property Low As Integer
End Class

' serialization output formatted (pretty-printed with whitespace and indentation):
' {
'   "Date": "2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00",
'   "TemperatureCelsius": 25,
'   "Summary": "Hot",
'   "DatesAvailable": [
'     "2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00",
'     "2019-08-02T00:00:00-07:00"
'   ],
'   "TemperatureRanges": {
'     "Cold": {
'       "High": 20,
'       "Low": -10
'     },
'     "Hot": {
'       "High": 60,
'       "Low": 20
'     }
'   },
'   "SummaryWords": [
'     "Cool",
'     "Windy",
'     "Humid"
'   ]
' }

Serialize to UTF-8

It's 5-10% faster to serialize to a UTF-8 byte array than to use the string-based methods. That's because the bytes (as UTF-8) don't need to be converted to strings (UTF-16).

To serialize to a UTF-8 byte array, call the JsonSerializer.SerializeToUtf8Bytes method:

byte[] jsonUtf8Bytes =JsonSerializer.SerializeToUtf8Bytes(weatherForecast);

Dim jsonUtf8Bytes As Byte()
Dim options As JsonSerializerOptions = New JsonSerializerOptions With {
    .WriteIndented = True
}
jsonUtf8Bytes = JsonSerializer.SerializeToUtf8Bytes(weatherForecast1, options)

A Serialize overload that takes a Utf8JsonWriter is also available.

Serialize to formatted JSON

To pretty-print the JSON output, set JsonSerializerOptions.WriteIndented to true:

using System.Text.Json;

namespace SerializeWriteIndented
{
    public class WeatherForecast
    {
        public DateTimeOffset Date { get; set; }
        public int TemperatureCelsius { get; set; }
        public string? Summary { get; set; }
    }

    public class Program
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            var weatherForecast = new WeatherForecast
            {
                Date = DateTime.Parse("2019-08-01"),
                TemperatureCelsius = 25,
                Summary = "Hot"
            };

            var options = new JsonSerializerOptions { WriteIndented = true };
            string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(weatherForecast, options);

            Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
        }
    }
}
// output:
//{
//  "Date": "2019-08-01T00:00:00-07:00",
//  "TemperatureCelsius": 25,
//  "Summary": "Hot"
//}

Dim options As JsonSerializerOptions = New JsonSerializerOptions With {
    .WriteIndented = True
}
jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(weatherForecast, options)

Tip

If you use JsonSerializerOptions repeatedly with the same options, don't create a new JsonSerializerOptions instance each time you use it. Reuse the same instance for every call. For more information, see Reuse JsonSerializerOptions instances.

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How to write .NET objects as JSON (serialize)

Serialization behavior

Serialize to UTF-8

Serialize to formatted JSON

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