F# Dynamic JSON.NET

// Copyright 2015 Mårten Rånge 
// 
// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); 
// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 
// You may obtain a copy of the License at 
// 
//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 
// 
// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 
// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 
// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 
// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 
// limitations under the License. 

module DynamicJson =
    open System

    open Newtonsoft.Json.Linq

    exception JsonCastException of Type

    type Json =
        | JsonValue             of JValue
        | JsonObject            of JObject
        | JsonArray             of JArray
        | JsonMissingProperty   of JToken*string
        | JsonIndexOutOfRange   of JToken*int
        | JsonUnrecognizedType  of obj

        static member AsJson (o : obj) =
            match o with
            | :? JObject as jobj-> JsonObject           jobj
            | :? JArray as jarr -> JsonArray            jarr
            | :? JValue as jval -> JsonValue            jval
            | _                 -> JsonUnrecognizedType o

        member x.Path =
            match x with
            | JsonValue v                   -> v.Path
            | JsonObject o                  -> o.Path
            | JsonArray a                   -> a.Path
            | JsonMissingProperty (t,key)   -> t.Path + "." + key
            | JsonIndexOutOfRange  (t,idx)  -> sprintf "%s.[%d]" t.Path idx
            | JsonUnrecognizedType v        -> "<NULL>"
            

        override x.ToString () =
            match x with
            | JsonValue v                   -> sprintf "Value: %s"                  <| v.ToString ()
            | JsonObject o                  -> sprintf "Object: %s"                 <| o.ToString ()
            | JsonArray a                   -> sprintf "Array: %s"                  <| a.ToString ()
            | JsonMissingProperty (t,key)   -> sprintf "Missing property: %s.%s"    t.Path key
            | JsonIndexOutOfRange  (t,idx)  -> sprintf "Out of range: %s.[%d]"      t.Path idx
            | JsonUnrecognizedType v        -> sprintf "Value: %s"                  <| v.ToString ()

        static member (?) (json : Json, key : string) : Json = 
            match json with
            | JsonValue jval    -> JsonMissingProperty (jval, key)
            | JsonArray jarr    -> JsonMissingProperty (jarr, key)
            | JsonObject jobj   -> 
                let p = jobj.Property key
                if p <> null then
                    Json.AsJson p.Value
                else
                    JsonMissingProperty (jobj, key)
            | _                 -> json

        member x.Item (idx : int) : Json =
            match x with
            | JsonValue jval    -> JsonIndexOutOfRange (jval, idx)
            | JsonObject jobj   -> JsonIndexOutOfRange (jobj, idx)
            | JsonArray jarr    ->
                if idx < 0 then
                    JsonIndexOutOfRange (jarr, idx)
                elif idx >= jarr.Count then
                    JsonIndexOutOfRange (jarr, idx)
                else
                    Json.AsJson jarr.[idx]
            | _ -> x

        member x.HasValue =
            match x with
            | JsonValue jval    -> true
            | _                 -> false

        member x.CastTo<'T> () = 
            match x with
            | JsonValue jval -> jval.ToObject<'T>()
            | JsonIndexOutOfRange (t, idx) ->
                raise (IndexOutOfRangeException (x.ToString ()))
            | _ ->
                raise (InvalidCastException ())
                
            
    let asJson      (o : obj)       = Json.AsJson o
    let hasValue    (json : Json)   = json.HasValue
    let castTo<'T>  (json : Json)   = json.CastTo<'T> ()
    let describe    (json : Json)   = json.ToString ()

module Test =
    let json = """
{
    "glossary": {
        "title": "example glossary",
		"GlossDiv": {
            "title": "S",
            "id": 24,
			"GlossList": {
                "GlossEntry": {
                    "ID": "SGML",
					"SortAs": "SGML",
					"GlossTerm": "Standard Generalized Markup Language",
					"Acronym": "SGML",
					"Abbrev": "ISO 8879:1986",
					"GlossDef": {
                        "para": "A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook.",
						"GlossSeeAlso": ["GML", "XML"]
                    },
					"GlossSee": "markup"
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
"""

open DynamicJson
open Newtonsoft.Json
open Test

[<EntryPoint>]
let main argv = 

    
    let json = asJson <| JsonConvert.DeserializeObject Test.json

    let missing = describe json?glossary?missingProp?nextProp.[1]
    let seeAlso = castTo<string> json?glossary?GlossDiv?GlossList?GlossEntry?GlossDef?GlossSeeAlso.[1]

    printfn "%A" missing
    printfn "%A" seeAlso

    0

I have been tinkering a bit with a newer version to support dynamic access to json array and objects. If you are interested you can take a look, it's quite rough at the moment but perhaps you see where I am going from the examples: https://gist.github.com/mrange/2f26f0e37d92ac616c88d4665742d88c

I realized I probably should rethink what a query is and by doing so I think I can increase the compasability of the queries over arrays

I actually ended up with something like your first example, json.glossaries.ToArray |> Array.map (fun j -> j?title), on Friday.

module DynamicJson =
  let (|?|) (json : Json) (f : Json -> Json) : Json seq =
    match json with
    | JsonValue  jval -> Seq.singleton <| JsonNotAnArray jval
    | JsonObject jobj -> Seq.singleton <| JsonNotAnArray jobj
    | JsonArray  jarr -> Seq.map (Json.ToJson >> f) <| jarr
    | _               -> Seq.singleton json

let ids = result?messages|?|(fun x -> x?message_id)  |> Seq.map castTo<string>

but where you're going with F# Dynamic JSON #2 is looking so good. Thank you for this!

Perhaps it would be better to base this around the JSON API in dotnet core rather than NewtonSoft JSON.

Well that didn't work out as System.Text.Json doesn't have a writable DOM

Well, I thought I create repo around the F# navigate ideas. Feel free to have a look at the example programs and jot down some ideas if you have them

https://github.com/mrange/FsJsonNavigation/blob/master/src/FsJsonNavigation/FsNavigation.Example.DotNetCore/Program.fs#L68