Is polymorphic deserialization possible in System.Text.Json?

Is polymorphic deserialization possible in System.Text.Json?

The answer is yes and no, depending on what you mean by “possible”.

There is no polymorphic deserialization (equivalent to Newtonsoft.Json’s TypeNameHandling) support built-in to System.Text.Json. This is because reading the .NET type name specified as a string within the JSON payload (such as $type metadata property) to create your objects is not recommended since it introduces potential security concerns (see https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/41347#issuecomment-535779492 for more info).

Allowing the payload to specify its own type information is a common source of vulnerabilities in web applications.

However, there is a way to add your own support for polymorphic deserialization by creating a JsonConverter<T>, so in that sense, it is possible.

The docs show an example of how to do that using a type discriminator property:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/standard/serialization/system-text-json-converters-how-to#support-polymorphic-deserialization

Let’s look at an example.

Say you have a base class and a couple of derived classes:

public class BaseClass
{
    public int Int { get; set; }
}
public class DerivedA : BaseClass
{
    public string Str { get; set; }
}
public class DerivedB : BaseClass
{
    public bool Bool { get; set; }
}

You can create the following JsonConverter<BaseClass> that writes the type discriminator while serializing and reads it to figure out which type to deserialize. You can register that converter on the JsonSerializerOptions.

public class BaseClassConverter : JsonConverter<BaseClass>
{
    private enum TypeDiscriminator
    {
        BaseClass = 0,
        DerivedA = 1,
        DerivedB = 2
    }

    public override bool CanConvert(Type type)
    {
        return typeof(BaseClass).IsAssignableFrom(type);
    }

    public override BaseClass Read(
        ref Utf8JsonReader reader,
        Type typeToConvert,
        JsonSerializerOptions options)
    {
        if (reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.StartObject)
        {
            throw new JsonException();
        }

        if (!reader.Read()
                || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.PropertyName
                || reader.GetString() != "TypeDiscriminator")
        {
            throw new JsonException();
        }

        if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.Number)
        {
            throw new JsonException();
        }

        BaseClass baseClass;
        TypeDiscriminator typeDiscriminator = (TypeDiscriminator)reader.GetInt32();
        switch (typeDiscriminator)
        {
            case TypeDiscriminator.DerivedA:
                if (!reader.Read() || reader.GetString() != "TypeValue")
                {
                    throw new JsonException();
                }
                if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.StartObject)
                {
                    throw new JsonException();
                }
                baseClass = (DerivedA)JsonSerializer.Deserialize(ref reader, typeof(DerivedA));
                break;
            case TypeDiscriminator.DerivedB:
                if (!reader.Read() || reader.GetString() != "TypeValue")
                {
                    throw new JsonException();
                }
                if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.StartObject)
                {
                    throw new JsonException();
                }
                baseClass = (DerivedB)JsonSerializer.Deserialize(ref reader, typeof(DerivedB));
                break;
            default:
                throw new NotSupportedException();
        }

        if (!reader.Read() || reader.TokenType != JsonTokenType.EndObject)
        {
            throw new JsonException();
        }

        return baseClass;
    }

    public override void Write(
        Utf8JsonWriter writer,
        BaseClass value,
        JsonSerializerOptions options)
    {
        writer.WriteStartObject();

        if (value is DerivedA derivedA)
        {
            writer.WriteNumber("TypeDiscriminator", (int)TypeDiscriminator.DerivedA);
            writer.WritePropertyName("TypeValue");
            JsonSerializer.Serialize(writer, derivedA);
        }
        else if (value is DerivedB derivedB)
        {
            writer.WriteNumber("TypeDiscriminator", (int)TypeDiscriminator.DerivedB);
            writer.WritePropertyName("TypeValue");
            JsonSerializer.Serialize(writer, derivedB);
        }
        else
        {
            throw new NotSupportedException();
        }

        writer.WriteEndObject();
    }
}

This is what serialization and deserialization would look like (including comparison with Newtonsoft.Json):

private static void PolymorphicSupportComparison()
{
    var objects = new List<BaseClass> { new DerivedA(), new DerivedB() };

    // Using: System.Text.Json
    var options = new JsonSerializerOptions
    {
        Converters = { new BaseClassConverter() },
        WriteIndented = true
    };

    string jsonString = JsonSerializer.Serialize(objects, options);
    Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
    /*
     [
      {
        "TypeDiscriminator": 1,
        "TypeValue": {
            "Str": null,
            "Int": 0
        }
      },
      {
        "TypeDiscriminator": 2,
        "TypeValue": {
            "Bool": false,
            "Int": 0
        }
      }
     ]
    */

    var roundTrip = JsonSerializer.Deserialize<List<BaseClass>>(jsonString, options);


    // Using: Newtonsoft.Json
    var settings = new Newtonsoft.Json.JsonSerializerSettings
    {
        TypeNameHandling = Newtonsoft.Json.TypeNameHandling.Objects,
        Formatting = Newtonsoft.Json.Formatting.Indented
    };

    jsonString = Newtonsoft.Json.JsonConvert.SerializeObject(objects, settings);
    Console.WriteLine(jsonString);
    /*
     [
      {
        "$type": "PolymorphicSerialization.DerivedA, PolymorphicSerialization",
        "Str": null,
        "Int": 0
      },
      {
        "$type": "PolymorphicSerialization.DerivedB, PolymorphicSerialization",
        "Bool": false,
        "Int": 0
      }
     ]
    */

    var originalList = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<List<BaseClass>>(jsonString, settings);

    Debug.Assert(originalList[0].GetType() == roundTrip[0].GetType());
}

Here’s another StackOverflow question that shows how to support polymorphic deserialization with interfaces (rather than abstract classes), but a similar solution would apply for any polymorphism:
Is there a simple way to manually serialize/deserialize child objects in a custom converter in System.Text.Json?