How to deserialize dodgy JSON (with improperly quoted strings, and missing brackets)?

Answering your questions #1 – #3 in order:

1. Json.NET does not support reading dodgy property values in the form colors["Open"] (which, as you correctly note, violates the JSON standard).

   Instead, you will need to manually fix these values, e.g. through some sort of Regex:

   var regex = new Regex(@"(colors\[)(.*)(\])");
   var fixedJsonString = regex.Replace(jsonString, 
       m => string.Format(@"""{0}{1}{2}""", m.Groups[1].Value, m.Groups[2].Value.Replace("\"", "\\\""), m.Groups[3].Value));
   

   This changes the color property values into properly escaped JSON strings:

   color: "colors[\"Open\"]"
   

   Json.NET does, however, have the capability to write dodgy property values by calling JsonWriter.WriteRawValue() from within a custom JsonConverter.

   Define the following converter:

   public class RawStringConverter : JsonConverter
   {
       public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
       {
           return objectType == typeof(string);
       }
   
       public override bool CanRead { get { return false; } }
   
       public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
       {
           throw new NotImplementedException();
       }
   
       public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
       {
           var s = (string)value;
           writer.WriteRawValue(s);
       }
   }
   

   Then define your RootObject as follows:

   public class RootObject
   {
       public string name { get; set; }
       public string id { get; set; }
       public string status { get; set; }
   
       [JsonConverter(typeof(RawStringConverter))]
       public string color { get; set; }
   }
   

   Then, when re-serialized, you will get the original dodgy values in your JSON.

2. Support for deserializing comma-delimited JSON without outer brackets will be in the next release of Json.NET after 10.0.3. see Issue 1396 and Issue 1355 for details. You will need to set JsonTextReader.SupportMultipleContent = true to make it work.

   In the meantime, as a workaround, you could grab ChainedTextReader and public static TextReader Extensions.Concat(this TextReader first, TextReader second) from the answer to How to string multiple TextReaders together? by Rex M and surround your JSON with brackets [ and ].

   Thus you would deserialize your JSON as follows:

   List<RootObject> list;
   using (var reader = new StringReader("[").Concat(new StringReader(fixedJsonString)).Concat(new StringReader("]")))
   using (var jsonReader = new JsonTextReader(reader))
   {
       list = JsonSerializer.CreateDefault().Deserialize<List<RootObject>>(jsonReader);
   }
   

   (Or you could just manually surround your JSON string with [ and ], but I prefer solutions that don’t involve copying possibly large strings.)

   Re-serializing a root collection without outer braces is possible if you serialize each item individually using its own JsonTextWriter with CloseOutput = false. You can also manually write a , between each serialized item to the underlying TextWriter shared by every JsonTextWriter.

3. Serializing JSON property names without a surrounding quote character is possible if you set JsonTextWriter.QuoteName = false.

   Thus, to re-serialize your List<RootObject> without quoted property names or outer braces, do:

   var sb = new StringBuilder();
   bool first = true;
   using (var textWriter = new StringWriter(sb))
   {
       foreach (var item in list)
       {
           if (!first)
           {
               textWriter.WriteLine(",");
           }
           first = false;
           using (var jsonWriter = new JsonTextWriter(textWriter) { QuoteName = false, Formatting = Formatting.Indented, CloseOutput = false })
           {
               JsonSerializer.CreateDefault().Serialize(jsonWriter, item);
           }
       }
   }
   
   var reserializedJson = sb.ToString();
   

Sample .Net fiddle showing all this in action.