Reading posted JSON data in ASP.NET - asp.net

Question

I subscribe to a mass email service which, when an error occurs at their end, posts to a page on my website as an endpoint to notify me that an email has bounced.
They describe it as follows:
The event data is sent in the POST request body using a JSON object.
What I need to know is how can I capture the info posted to me?
Currently I'm pointing them to a generic handler, a .ashx page, this can be changed to whatever as long as it's in .NET.
In 10 years working with first classic ASP and now .NET I've never done this before and I must admit I don't even know where to start.

Answer 1

This is the code I used to achieve a similar thing - not sure where I got it originally.
C#
var strJSON = String.Empty;
context.Request.InputStream.Position = 0;
using (var inputStream = new StreamReader(context.Request.InputStream))
{
strJSON = inputStream.ReadToEnd();
}
JavaScriptSerializer javaScriptSerializer = new JavaScriptSerializer();
object serJsonDetails = javaScriptSerializer.Deserialize(strJSON, typeof(object));
// go and process the serJsonDetails object
or VB
Dim strJSON = [String].Empty
context.Request.InputStream.Position = 0
Using inputStream = New StreamReader(context.Request.InputStream)
strJSON = inputStream.ReadToEnd()
End Using
Dim javaScriptSerializer As New JavaScriptSerializer()
Dim serJsonDetails As Object = javaScriptSerializer.Deserialize(strJSON, GetType(Object))
' go and process the serJsonDetails object

Answer 2

You could just read the Request stream (Request.GetRequestStream) and use Json.NET to deserialize to an object.
You could use MVC4 and the built in object mapping.
There's many options. Perhaps you should read up on them more so that you have an idea of their capabilities and drawbacks.

Answer 3

Probably Request.Form (here) will help you get the JSON, if you know the content of the post, and then you need something like json.net library to get the object, or you can simply search the string using regex or keywords
Or if you can direct the post to a web service(asmx) instead of a web page, those services will parse the json for you

Answer 4

If you need to read raw post data twice or many times, i advice you to use this code.
string postBodyJson = null;
MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
Request.InputStream.Position = 0;
Request.InputStream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
Request.InputStream.CopyTo(ms);
ms.Position = 0;
ms.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
using (var reader = new StreamReader(ms))
{
postBodyJson = reader.ReadToEnd();
}