Using NewtonSoft's json, what is the best way to preserve leading zeros in integer values? In my application, values like 04331 and 4331 have different meanings, so eliminating the leading zero(s) is not an option. Am currently converting such values to strings before encoding in JSON. Are there any json parameters that would be use here?
Many thanks in advance for your help!!
Using NewtonSoft's json, what is the best way to preserve leading zeros in integer values? In my application, values like 04331 and 4331 have different meanings, so eliminating the leading zero(s) is not an option. Am currently converting such values to strings before encoding in JSON. Are there any json parameters that would be use here?
Many thanks in advance for your help!!
Share edited Aug 4, 2017 at 0:35 abatishchev 100k88 gold badges301 silver badges442 bronze badges asked Dec 1, 2011 at 0:33 BrianBrian 111 silver badge2 bronze badges 1- Agree with the answers, these are strings, not integers – Paul Tyng Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 15:36
3 Answers
Reset to default 10If 04331 and 4331 have different meanings then they are strings, not numbers. So send them as strings.
It's possible to zero pad numbers if you need that, but that's not correct in your case.
Strings are likely your best bet. The JSON specification defines numbers as being 0, or starting with 1-9, therefore it would be incorrect behaviour to preserve leading zeros (or even deal with numbers in that format!)
Spot on, a prod error forced us to change ours to a string as well.
As an aside, in Web Api 2 which uses Json.NET 4.5.0.0, when it attempts to deserialize a number with a leading zero, we were getting the exception message "Additional non-parsable characters are at the end of the string", which is really misleading and took a while to debug in a large json payload.
After upgrading to Json 6.0.* in tests we saw something much more helpful: "Input string '08430228' is not a valid number. Path '[PropertyName]', line 2, position 20."
So we updated web api to use the latest Json.NET binary and added this to web.config to force web api to use that version:
<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="Newtonsoft.Json" publicKeyToken="30ad4fe6b2a6aeed" culture="neutral" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="4.5.0.0" newVersion="6.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>