Case-insensitive Property Deserialization with Json.NET

Introduction

When working with JSON data, it is often necessary to deserialize it into C# objects. One issue that can arise is when the property names in the JSON data do not match the property names in the C# class. By default, Json.NET is case-sensitive when deserializing properties. This means that if the property names are not an exact match, the deserialization will fail. However, there is a way to make Json.NET case-insensitive when deserializing properties.

Solution

To make Json.NET case-insensitive when deserializing properties, we can use the `JsonPropertyAttribute` class. This class allows us to specify the name of the property in the JSON data that should be used to deserialize a particular property in the C# class. By setting the `PropertyName` property of the `JsonPropertyAttribute` to the name of the property in the JSON data, but making it lower-case, we can make Json.NET case-insensitive.

Here is an example of how to use the `JsonPropertyAttribute` to make Json.NET case-insensitive:

[JsonObject(MemberSerialization.OptIn)]
public class Person
{
    [JsonProperty("id")]
    public int Id { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty("name")]
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [JsonProperty("email")]
    public string Email { get; set; }
}

In this example, we have a `Person` class with three properties: `Id`, `Name`, and `Email`. We have used the `JsonPropertyAttribute` to specify the name of each property in the JSON data. Notice that we have made the property names in the `JsonPropertyAttribute` lower-case, which makes them case-insensitive.

Conclusion

By using the `JsonPropertyAttribute` class to specify the property names in the JSON data, we can make Json.NET case-insensitive when deserializing properties. This is a useful technique when working with JSON data that may have inconsistent property names.