I’ve been doing a lot more with jQuery in ASP.NET MVC than I ever have before. One of the biggest problems I’ve had is in the sending back of JSON to jQuery ajax calls, it seems that the built in MVC action result is not to friendly with dates and/or forms submitted with uploaded files, so with some help of an article @ http://msmvps.com/blogs/omar/archive/2008/10/03/create-rest-api-using-asp-net-mvc-that-speaks-both-json-and-plain-xml.aspx I’ve come up with my own SerializeResult<T>

Usage:

To send back JSON for a ajax submit without a file upload:

result = new SerializeResult<Models.CheckPassword.Response>(model.Result, enSerializeResultFormat.Json);

To Send back JSON for an ajax submit with a file upload:

result = new SerializeResult<Models.UploadFile.ReceiveFile.Response>(model.Result, enSerializeResultFormat.JsonTextArea);

All you have to do is decorate your classes with “[DataContract]” and “[DataMember]” attributes

ex:

    [DataContract]
    public class Client
    {
      [DataMember] public int? ClientID;
      [DataMember] public string CompanyName;

      [DataMember] public decimal PriorPriorYearSalesTotal;
      [DataMember] public decimal PriorYearSalesTotal;
      [DataMember] public decimal CurrentYearSalesTotal;
      [DataMember] public decimal SalesTotal;

      public Client()
      {
        ClientID = null;
        CompanyName = string.Empty;

        PriorPriorYearSalesTotal = 0;
        PriorYearSalesTotal = 0;
        CurrentYearSalesTotal = 0;
        SalesTotal = 0;
      }
    }

Here is the

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Security.Principal;
using System.Text;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using System.Runtime.Serialization.Json;

//http://msmvps.com/blogs/omar/archive/2008/10/03/create-rest-api-using-asp-net-mvc-that-speaks-both-json-and-plain-xml.aspx

namespace ISI.Libraries.MVC
{
  public enum enSerializeResultFormat
  {
    Auto,
    Xml,
    JavaScript,
    Json,
    JsonTextArea
  }

  [AspNetHostingPermission(System.Security.Permissions.SecurityAction.LinkDemand, Level = AspNetHostingPermissionLevel.Minimal)]
  [AspNetHostingPermission(System.Security.Permissions.SecurityAction.InheritanceDemand, Level = AspNetHostingPermissionLevel.Minimal)]
  public class SerializeResult<T> : ActionResult
  {
    private static UTF8Encoding UTF8 = new UTF8Encoding(false);

    public T Data { get; set; }
    public Type[] IncludedTypes = new Type[] { typeof(object) };
    public enSerializeResultFormat SerializeFormat = enSerializeResultFormat.Auto;


    public SerializeResult(T data, Type[] extraTypes, enSerializeResultFormat serializeFormat)
    {
      this.Data = data;
      this.IncludedTypes = extraTypes;
      this.SerializeFormat = serializeFormat;
    }
    public SerializeResult(T data, enSerializeResultFormat serializeFormat) : this(data, new Type[] { typeof(object) }, serializeFormat) { }
    public SerializeResult(T data, Type[] extraTypes) : this(data, extraTypes, enSerializeResultFormat.Auto) { }
    public SerializeResult(T data) : this(data, new Type[] { typeof(object) }) { }


    public override void ExecuteResult(ControllerContext filterContext)
    {
      if(SerializeFormat == enSerializeResultFormat.Auto)
      {
        SerializeFormat = ((filterContext.HttpContext.Request.Headers["Content-Type"] ?? string.Empty).ToLower().Contains("application/json") ? enSerializeResultFormat.Json : enSerializeResultFormat.Xml);
      }

      switch (SerializeFormat)
      {
        case enSerializeResultFormat.Xml:
          using (System.IO.MemoryStream oStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
          {
            ISI.Libraries.XML.Serialize<T>(this.Data, oStream);

            new ContentResult { ContentType = "text/xml", Content = UTF8.GetString(oStream.ToArray()), ContentEncoding = UTF8 }.ExecuteResult(filterContext);
          }
          break;

        case enSerializeResultFormat.Json:
          using (System.IO.MemoryStream oStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
          {
            new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T)).WriteObject(oStream, this.Data);

            new ContentResult { ContentType = "application/json", Content = UTF8.GetString(oStream.ToArray()), ContentEncoding = UTF8 }.ExecuteResult(filterContext);
          }
          break;

        case enSerializeResultFormat.JsonTextArea:
          using (System.IO.MemoryStream oStream = new System.IO.MemoryStream())
          {
            new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(T)).WriteObject(oStream, this.Data);

            new ContentResult { ContentType = "text/html", Content = string.Format("<textarea>{0}</textarea>", UTF8.GetString(oStream.ToArray())), ContentEncoding = UTF8 }.ExecuteResult(filterContext);
          }
          break;

        case enSerializeResultFormat.JavaScript:
          new JsonResult { Data = this.Data }.ExecuteResult(filterContext);
          break;
      }
    }
   
  }
}