Awesome

Vdf.NET JsonConverter

VDF-JSON converters for Vdf.NET.

Documentation

This extension should be used after deserializing data.

To convert some VObject importantVdfObject to a corresponding Json.NET JObject importantJsonObject, do

JObject importantJsonObject = importantVdfObject.ToJson();

Correspondingly, to convert some file importantInfo.vdf to a JSON importantInfo.json, do

dynamic volvo = VdfConvert.Deserialize(File.ReadAllText("importantInfo.vdf"));
File.WriteAllText("importantInfo.json", volvo.ToJson());

The .ToJson() and .ToVdf() extension methods are defined on all VToken and JToken instances respectively.

Handling duplicate keys when converting to JSON

Unlike VDF, the JSON format doesn't support duplicate keys in its objects. So this library allows adjusting duplicate key handling via the ObjectDuplicateKeyHandling and ValueDuplicateKeyHandling settings. They can be set when calling .ToJson() like

.ToJson(new VdfJsonConversionSettings {
  // Sets duplicate key handling when the corresponding value is an object or list.
  ObjectDuplicateKeyHandling = DuplicateKeyHandling.Ignore,
  // Sets duplicate key handling when the corresponding value is a singular value.
  ValueDuplicateKeyHandling = DuplicateKeyHandling.Ignore
})

The different duplicate key handling options are:

Ignore - Ignores all duplicate keys after the first. Selecting this option will cause all duplicates to be discarded.
Merge - Merges two JObjects or JArrays using the .Merge() method provided by Json.NET with default settings.
Replace - Ignores all duplicate keys before the last. Selecting this option will cause all duplicates to be discarded.
Throw - Simply throws an exception when a duplicate key is encountered. This is the default behavior.

FAQ

Why doesn't calling `someJsonObject.ToVdf().ToJson()` always return the original JSON?

This is because of the way some JSON elements are converted to VDF such as arrays and nulls.

JSON

{
  "image_url": null,
  "used_by_classes": [
    "Scout",
    "Engineer"
  ]
}

VDF

{
  "image_url" ""
  "used_by_classes"
  {
    "0" "Scout"
    "1" "Engineer"
  }
}

As such, when these elements are converted back to JSON, they lose their original structure and become: