On supporting top level response object as lists or objects

[solfar]

There is an old problem with this library is that it doesn't support returning top level list JSON objects, even though that is a valid JSON response. There was a hack proposed on how to circumvent this restriction by changing it into a dict in blueprint, but that doesn't seem like a good long-term solution.

I noticed that the Deserialize function from Unreal supports parsing both list and objects at top level, and there is actually one version of it that automatically return the right top level, but as a FJsonValue rather than a FJsonObject:

JsonSerializer.h (58) static bool Deserialize(const TSharedRef< TJsonReader<CharType> >& Reader, TSharedPtr<FJsonValue>& OutValue)

I added a blueprint function to VaRequestJSON.cpp called GetResponseValue() that returns to me the Json value that results calling the function above. With that value I can then either call the 'AsObject' or 'AsArray' at the blueprint level to access the response as a top level object or as a top level list respectively. Seems to work fine, so this is maybe something you should consider.

[solfar]

Just for your interest, this is how I am doing this now: I created an extra property called ResponseJsonVal, along with a GetResponseValue() method. In VaRequestJSON.ccp, I then replace the call to Deserialize with the following:

TSharedRef<TJsonReader<TCHAR>> JsonReader = TJsonReaderFactory<TCHAR>::Create(ResponseContent);
FJsonSerializer::Deserialize(JsonReader, ResponseJsonVal->GetRootValue());

if (ResponseJsonVal->GetType() == EVaJson::Object) {
	ResponseJsonObj->SetRootObject(ResponseJsonVal->AsObject()->GetRootObject());
}

This keeps the old GetResponseObject method working as before, but allows access to the more generic value through the GetResponseValue method.

[ufna]

Top-level arrays are readable now