Creating a JSON array in C#

Solution 1:

You're close. This should do the trick:

new {items = new [] {
    new {name = "command" , index = "X", optional = "0"}, 
    new {name = "command" , index = "X", optional = "0"}
}}

If your source was an enumerable of some sort, you might want to do this:

new {items = source.Select(item => new 
{
    name = item.Name, index = item.Index, options = item.Optional
})};

Solution 2:

You'd better create some class for each item instead of using anonymous objects. And in object you're serializing you should have array of those items. E.g.:

public class Item
{
    public string name { get; set; }
    public string index { get; set; }
    public string optional { get; set; }
}

public class RootObject
{
    public List<Item> items { get; set; }
}

Usage:

var objectToSerialize = new RootObject();
objectToSerialize.items = new List<Item> 
                          {
                             new Item { name = "test1", index = "index1" },
                             new Item { name = "test2", index = "index2" }
                          };

And in the result you won't have to change things several times if you need to change data-structure.

p.s. Here's very nice tool for complex jsons

Solution 3:

Also , with Anonymous types ( I prefer not to do this) -- this is just another approach.

void Main()
{
    var x = new
    {
        items = new[]
        {
            new
            {
                name = "command", index = "X", optional = "0"
            },
            new
            {
                name = "command", index = "X", optional = "0"
            }
        }
    };
    JavaScriptSerializer js = new JavaScriptSerializer(); //system.web.extension assembly....
    Console.WriteLine(js.Serialize(x));
}

result :

{"items":[{"name":"command","index":"X","optional":"0"},{"name":"command","index":"X","optional":"0"}]}