Michael Whelan
behaviour driven blog
Paste JSON as Classes
In the recent ASP.Net and Web Tools 2012.2 Update a new feature was added to allow pasting of JSON as .Net classes. This feature allows you to generate strongly typed classes in C# or VB.NET from valid JSON text. To use the feature, open a .vb or .cs file, copy the JSON text to the clipboard, select “Paste Special” from the Edit menu, and then select “Paste JSON As Classes.”
The feature uses the Json.Net JSON parser from Newtonsoft to parse JSON text from the clipboard. Once the parser validates the clipboard data as valid JSON, it converts it into the C# or VB.NET class depending on the selected file type. If the JSON object on the clipboard is invalid, a dialog is displayed showing the Json.Net error message with the reason the text was not valid JSON.
I am currently working on a new diagnostics report for BDDfy which outputs the time it took to run each story, scenario, and scenario step (each Given When Then method). This produces the following JSON output for the BDDfy ATM sample.
{
"Stories":
[
{
"Name":"Account holder withdraws cash",
"Duration":30,
"Scenarios":
[
{
"Name":"Account has insufficient fund",
"Duration":29,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the Account Balance is $10",
"Duration":1
},
{
"Name":"And the Card is valid",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the machine contains enough money",
"Duration":4
},
{
"Name":"When the Account Holder requests $20",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the ATM should not dispense any Money",
"Duration":20
},
{
"Name":"And the ATM should say there are Insufficient Funds",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the Account Balance should be $20",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the Card should be returned",
"Duration":1
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Account has sufficient fund",
"Duration":1,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the account balance is $100",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the Card is valid",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the machine contains enough money",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"When the account holder requests $20",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the ATM should dispense $20",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the account balance should be $80",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the card should be returned",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Card has been disabled",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the Card is disabled",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"When the Account Holder requests 20",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then Card is retained",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"And the ATM should say the Card has been retained",
"Duration":0
}
]
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Tic tac toe",
"Duration":25,
"Scenarios":
[
{
"Name":"Cat\u0027s game",
"Duration":13,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, O, X\r\nO, O, X\r\nX, X, O",
"Duration":5
},
{
"Name":"Then it should be a cats game",
"Duration":7
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Diagonal win",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, O, O\r\nX, O, X\r\nO, X, ",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner is O",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Horizontal win",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, X, X\r\nX, O, O\r\nO, O, X",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner is X",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Horizontal win in the bottom",
"Duration":1,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, X, \r\nX, O, X\r\nO, O, O",
"Duration":1
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner is O",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Horizontal win in the middle",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, O, O\r\nX, X, X\r\nO, O, X",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner is X",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"O wins",
"Duration":6,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the following board X, X, O, X, O, , , ,",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"When the game is played at (2, 0)",
"Duration":5
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner should be O",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Vertical win in the left",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, O, O\r\nX, O, X\r\nX, X, O",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner is X",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Vertical win in the middle",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\n , X, O\r\nO, X, O\r\nO, X, X",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner is X",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"Vertical win in the right",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, O, X\r\nO, O, X\r\nO, X, X",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner is X",
"Duration":0
}
]
},
{
"Name":"When x and o play their first moves",
"Duration":5,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given a new game",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"When X and O play on (0, 0), (2, 2)",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the board state should be X, , , , , , , , O",
"Duration":4
}
]
},
{
"Name":"X wins",
"Duration":0,
"Steps":
[
{
"Name":"Given the board\r\nX, X, O\r\nX, X, O\r\nO, O, ",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"When x plays in the bottom right",
"Duration":0
},
{
"Name":"Then the winner should be x",
"Duration":0
}
]
}
]
}
]
}
The Paste JSON as Classes operation produces the following C# output:
public class Rootobject
{
public Story[] Stories { get; set; }
}
public class Story
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Duration { get; set; }
public Scenario[] Scenarios { get; set; }
}
public class Scenario
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Duration { get; set; }
public Step[] Steps { get; set; }
}
public class Step
{
public string Name { get; set; }
public int Duration { get; set; }
}
You can find the ATM sample in the BDDfy source code, or you can install it from NuGet.
You can read more about the Paste JSON as Classes feature here:
About Michael Whelan
Michael Whelan is a Technical Lead with over 20 years’ experience in building (and testing!) applications on the Microsoft stack. He is passionate about applying agile development practices, such as BDD and continuous delivery, to agile processes. These days his primary focus is ASP.Net MVC Core and Azure. He contributes to a number of open source frameworks through TestStack.