Deserializing a JSON file with JavaScriptSerializer()

Solution 1:

1. You need to create a class that holds the user values, just like the response class User.

2. Add a property to the Response class 'user' with the type of the new class for the user values User.

   public class Response {
   
       public string id { get; set; }
       public string text { get; set; }
       public string url { get; set; }
       public string width { get; set; }
       public string height { get; set; }
       public string size { get; set; }
       public string type { get; set; }
       public string timestamp { get; set; }
       public User user { get; set; }
   
   }
   
   public class User {
   
       public int id { get; set; }
       public string screen_name { get; set; }
   
   }
   

In general you should make sure the property types of the json and your CLR classes match up. It seems that the structure that you're trying to deserialize contains multiple number values (most likely int). I'm not sure if the JavaScriptSerializer is able to deserialize numbers into string fields automatically, but you should try to match your CLR type as close to the actual data as possible anyway.

Solution 2:

Assuming you don't want to create another class, you can always let the deserializer give you a dictionary of key-value-pairs, like so:

string s = //{ "user" : {    "id" : 12345,    "screen_name" : "twitpicuser"}};
var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
var result = serializer.DeserializeObject(s);

You'll get back something, where you can do:

var userId = int.Parse(result["user"]["id"]); // or (int)result["user"]["id"] depending on how the JSON is serialized.
// etc.

Look at result in the debugger to see, what's in there.