Working with JSON in MVC

Introduction

JSON Java Script Object Notation is a very familiar and commonly used concept. It is a data interchange medium and is very lightweight. It is one kind of syntax for storing and passing data. Since it is Javascript object notation, it uses the javascript style of syntax, but actually is text only. It also is language independent. The format would look like below:

Now this JSON object can be created and used to POST or GET in MVC application. Usually, when we do an ajax call, we get the HTML fragments and send them to the browser or append to any DOM elements. That is acceptable, but sending HTML elements with data is not advisable, so wouldn't it be great to send data in a specific format and the browser assigns the data into the HTML.

Here, JSON comes in handy. Let's see how. I will explain in simple terms and snippets for better understanding as this topic is not complex at all.

Peek into Snippets!!

I will proceed with anticipation that readers are aware of MVC (Model, View & Controller), as I will not be sharing the steps to create an MVC project. So, let's start. When we create a controller in an MVC project, we know the default type added is ActionResult, which is generic to other types of method types pre-defined like ViewResult, JsonResult, etc.. Thus, for returning a JSON data, we can use either ActionResult or JsonResult, but preferably use JsonResult as we already know the type, the method will return. JsonResult is actually a special ActionResult, which suggests the ViewEngine that an object of JSON type will be returned rather than normal HTML. Let's see the snippet and then try and understand.