How do I get formatted JSON in .NET using C#?

I am using .NET JSON parser and would like to serialize my config file so it is readable. So instead of:

{"blah":"v", "blah2":"v2"}

I would like something nicer like:

{
    "blah":"v", 
    "blah2":"v2"
}

My code is something like this:

using System.Web.Script.Serialization; 

var ser = new JavaScriptSerializer();
configSz = ser.Serialize(config);
using (var f = (TextWriter)File.CreateText(configFn))
{
    f.WriteLine(configSz);
    f.Close();
}

You are going to have a hard time accomplishing this with JavaScriptSerializer.

Try JSON.Net.

With minor modifications from JSON.Net example

using System;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

namespace JsonPrettyPrint
{
    internal class Program
    {
        private static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Product product = new Product
                {
                    Name = "Apple",
                    Expiry = new DateTime(2008, 12, 28),
                    Price = 3.99M,
                    Sizes = new[] { "Small", "Medium", "Large" }
                };

            string json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(product, Formatting.Indented);
            Console.WriteLine(json);

            Product deserializedProduct = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Product>(json);
        }
    }

    internal class Product
    {
        public String[] Sizes { get; set; }
        public decimal Price { get; set; }
        public DateTime Expiry { get; set; }
        public string Name { get; set; }
    }
}

Results

{
  "Sizes": [
    "Small",
    "Medium",
    "Large"
  ],
  "Price": 3.99,
  "Expiry": "\/Date(1230447600000-0700)\/",
  "Name": "Apple"
}

Documentation: Serialize an Object

A shorter sample code for Json.Net library

private static string FormatJson(string json)
{
    dynamic parsedJson = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(json);
    return JsonConvert.SerializeObject(parsedJson, Formatting.Indented);
}

If you have a JSON string and want to "prettify" it, but don't want to serialise it to and from a known C# type then the following does the trick (using JSON.NET):

using System;
using System.IO;
using Newtonsoft.Json;

class JsonUtil
{
    public static string JsonPrettify(string json)
    {
        using (var stringReader = new StringReader(json))
        using (var stringWriter = new StringWriter())
        {
            var jsonReader = new JsonTextReader(stringReader);
            var jsonWriter = new JsonTextWriter(stringWriter) { Formatting = Formatting.Indented };
            jsonWriter.WriteToken(jsonReader);
            return stringWriter.ToString();
        }
    }
}