Recommended way to read Entity data? (Unity, C#)

Henry Smith

Hi, I'm experimenting with brainCloud in Unity (C#) and I'm trying to read a Global Entity. I can get the JSON of the Entity object but then what's the best way to access the "data" key inside? I can do it in a convoluted way but I'm hoping there's a friendlier way using the API.
Here's some sample code with questions in the comments:

string entityId = "whatever";
SuccessCallback successCallback = (jsonResponse, cbObject) =>
{
	// Unity's JsonUtility doesn't support Dictionaries so I guess I should use brainCloud's internal JsonReader?
	// And is there a more specific class I can Deserialize to, or should I just use generic Dictionaries?
	var responseDict = JsonReader.Deserialize<Dictionary<string, object>>(jsonResponse);
	var entityDict = responseDict["data"] as Dictionary<string, object>;
	var myDataDict = entityDict["data"] as Dictionary<string, object>;

	// Now I have my data as a Dictionary, but ideally I want to deserialize it into my own custom class type...
	// So should I *re-serialize* it back to JSON so I can read it? This seems unnecessary.
	var myDataJson = JsonWriter.Serialize(myDataDict);
	var myData = JsonReader.Deserialize<MyCustomClass>(myDataJson);

	// Now I have my data in the correct form!
};
FailureCallback failureCallback = (status, reasonCode, jsonError, cbObject) => {};

_bc.GlobalEntityService.ReadEntity(entityId, successCallback, failureCallback);

Seems like there's probably an easier way to do it, just wondering what you recommend?
Thanks!

David St-Louis 0

Hi Henry,

Yes the data received is in JSON. And brainCloud expects a JSON when you update the entity. What you can do is create a serialize and a deserialize method inside your custom type.

Travis Brown-John

@Henry-Smith said in Recommended way to read Entity data? (Unity, C#):

Sorry to bring back an old thread, but I'm just learning the platform and I thought I'd share my solution to this.

First, define a generic class to handle the raw json response data:
eg. my Tut1_AddTwoNumbers api returns:

{"data":{"response":{"answer":24},"success":true},"status":200}

    public class Response<T>
    {
        public ResponseData<T> data;
        public int status;
    }
    public class ResponseData<T>
    {
        public T response;
        public bool success;
    }

Then for each api call that you have, define a class that contains the fields that are custom to that response.

    public class Tut1_AddTwoNumbersResponse
    {
        public int answer;
    }

Now, you call your function and handle the response like this:

    public void Tut1_AddTwoNumbers()
    {
        string scriptName = "Tut1_AddTwoNumbers";
        // Anonymous object to supply the params.
        var data = new
        {
            num1 = 16,
            num2 = 8
        };

        var jsonScriptData = JsonWriter.Serialize(data);
        SuccessCallback successCallback = (response, userdata) =>
        {
            var responseObject = JsonReader.Deserialize<Response<Tut1_AddTwoNumbersResponse>>(response);
            //var responseObject = JObject.Parse(response);
            Debug.Log($"Success The answer is '{responseObject.data.response.answer}' | raw_json={response}");
        };
        FailureCallback failureCallback = (status, code, error, userdata) =>
        {
            Debug.Log(string.Format("Failed | {0}  {1}  {2}", status, code, error));
        };
        // Call the script 
        _bc.ScriptService.RunScript(scriptName, jsonScriptData, successCallback, failureCallback);
    }

this line is the important part:

JsonReader.Deserialize<Response<Tut1_AddTwoNumbersResponse>>(response);

Hope that helps someone!