In ASP.NET MVC, deserialize JSON prior to or in controller's action method

I resolved my problem by implementing an action filter; code sample is provided below. From the research, I learned that there is another solution, model binder, as takepara described above. But I don't really know that pros and cons of doing in either approach.

Thanks to Steve Gentile's blog post for this solution.

public class JsonFilter : ActionFilterAttribute
    {
        public string Parameter { get; set; }
        public Type JsonDataType { get; set; }

        public override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
        {
            if (filterContext.HttpContext.Request.ContentType.Contains("application/json"))
            {
                string inputContent;
                using (var sr = new StreamReader(filterContext.HttpContext.Request.InputStream))
                {
                    inputContent = sr.ReadToEnd();
                }

                var result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject(inputContent, JsonDataType);
                filterContext.ActionParameters[Parameter] = result;
            }
        }
    }

[AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)]
[JsonFilter(Parameter="user", JsonDataType=typeof(User))]
public ActionResult Submit(User user)
{
    // user object is deserialized properly prior to execution of Submit() function

    return View();
}

1.create custom model binder

  public class UserModelBinder : IModelBinder
  {
    public object BindModel(ControllerContext controllerContext, ModelBindingContext bindingContext)
    {
      User model;

      if(controllerContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.AcceptTypes.Contains("application/json"))
      {
        var serializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
        var form = controllerContext.RequestContext.HttpContext.Request.Form.ToString();
        model = serializer.Deserialize<User>(HttpUtility.UrlDecode(form));
      }
      else
      {
        model = (User)ModelBinders.Binders.DefaultBinder.BindModel(controllerContext, bindingContext);
      }

      return model;
    }
  }

2.add model binder in application_start event

  ModelBinders.Binders[typeof(User)] = new UserModelBinder();

3.use jQuery $.get/$.post in view client JavaScript code.

  <% using(Html.BeginForm("JsonData","Home",new{},FormMethod.Post, new{id="jsonform"})) { %>

    <% = Html.TextArea("jsonarea","",new {id="jsonarea"}) %><br />

    <input type="button" id="getjson" value="Get Json" />
    <input type="button" id="postjson" value="Post Json" />
  <% } %>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    $(function() {
      $('#getjson').click(function() {
        $.get($('#jsonform').attr('action'), function(data) {
          $('#jsonarea').val(data);
        });
      });

      $('#postjson').click(function() {
        $.post($('#jsonform').attr('action'), $('#jsonarea').val(), function(data) {
          alert("posted!");
        },"json");
      });
    });
  </script>

You could try Json.NET. The documentation is pretty good and it should be able to do what you need. You'll also want to grab JsonNetResult as it returns an ActionResult that can be used in ASP.NET MVC application. It's quite easy to use.

Json.NET also works well with Date serialization. More info regarding that can be found here.

Hope this helps.