Working with JSON files in C Sharp (C#) - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Working with JSON files

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple program to manage a list of books in a library. The data will be saved and loaded using JSON files.

🎯 Goal: Create a C# program that stores book information in a list, converts it to JSON format, and prints the JSON string.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a list of books with specific properties

Add a configuration variable for JSON formatting

Serialize the list of books to a JSON string

Print the JSON string to the console

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Many applications save and load data in JSON format because it is easy to read and write for both humans and computers.

💼 Career

Knowing how to work with JSON files is essential for software developers, especially when building web services, APIs, or data-driven applications.

1

Create the list of books

Create a list called books of type List<Book> and add these exact books: new Book { Title = "The Hobbit", Author = "J.R.R. Tolkien", Year = 1937 } and new Book { Title = "1984", Author = "George Orwell", Year = 1949 }. Also, define the Book class with public properties Title, Author, and Year.

C Sharp (C#)

// Define the Book class and create the books list
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Define a class Book with three public properties. Then create a List<Book> and add two Book objects with the exact details.

2

Add JSON serialization options

Add a variable called options of type System.Text.Json.JsonSerializerOptions and set its WriteIndented property to true.

C Sharp (C#)

using System.Text.Json;

// Add JSON serialization options here
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use new JsonSerializerOptions { WriteIndented = true } to create the options variable.

3

Serialize the books list to JSON

Create a string variable called jsonString and assign it the JSON serialization of books using JsonSerializer.Serialize with options.

C Sharp (C#)

// Serialize the books list to JSON string
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use JsonSerializer.Serialize(books, options) to convert the list to a JSON string.

4

Print the JSON string

Write a line to print the jsonString variable to the console using Console.WriteLine.

C Sharp (C#)

// Print the JSON string to the console
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use Console.WriteLine(jsonString); to display the JSON output.