How to parse this JSON file?

[FeastSC2]

How can I parse this JSON using unity’s JsonUtility.FromJson?

I’m not sure what kind of structure I need to create considering that there is more than 1 definition.

This the Json. It contains the various definition of the word “bottle”.

[
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "A container, typically made of glass and having a tapered neck, used for holding liquids.",
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "labels": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "The contents of such a container.",
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "labels": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "A container with a rubber nipple used for giving liquids to infants",
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "labels": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "<xref>Nerve</xref>, <xref>courage</xref>.",
    "labels": [
      {
        "text": "UK",
        "type": "region"
      },
      {
        "text": "informal",
        "type": "register"
      }
    ],
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "With one's <xref>hair</xref> color produced by <xref>dyeing</xref>.",
    "labels": [
      {
        "text": "attributive",
        "type": "usage"
      }
    ],
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "noun",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "A bundle, especially of hay; something tied in a bundle.",
    "labels": [
      {
        "text": "obsolete",
        "type": "chronological"
      }
    ],
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "verb",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "To seal (a liquid) into a bottle for later consumption.",
    "labels": [
      {
        "text": "transitive",
        "type": "grammar"
      }
    ],
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "verb",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "To feed (an infant) <xref>baby formula</xref>.",
    "labels": [
      {
        "text": "transitive",
        "type": "grammar"
      },
      {
        "text": "UK",
        "type": "region"
      }
    ],
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "verb",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "To refrain from doing (something) at the last moment because of a sudden loss of courage.",
    "labels": [
      {
        "text": "UK",
        "type": "region"
      },
      {
        "text": "slang",
        "type": "register"
      }
    ],
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  },
  {
    "partOfSpeech": "verb",
    "attributionText": "from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.",
    "sourceDictionary": "wiktionary",
    "text": "To strike (someone) with a bottle.",
    "labels": [
      {
        "text": "UK",
        "type": "region"
      },
      {
        "text": "slang",
        "type": "register"
      }
    ],
    "word": "bottle",
    "attributionUrl": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/",
    "wordnikUrl": "https://www.wordnik.com/words/bottle",
    "citations": [],
    "exampleUses": [],
    "notes": [],
    "relatedWords": [],
    "textProns": []
  }
]

[Kurt-Dekker]

@FeastSC2

How can I parse this JSON using unity’s JsonUtility.FromJson?

You cannot.

Problems with Unity “tiny lite” built-in JSON:

In general I highly suggest staying away from Unity’s JSON “tiny lite” package. It’s really not very capable at all and will silently fail on very common data structures, such as Dictionaries and Hashes and ALL properties.

Instead grab Newtonsoft JSON .NET off the asset store for free, or else install it from the Unity Package Manager (Window → Package Manager).

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/input-management/json-net-for-unity-11347

Also, always be sure to leverage sites like:

https://jsonlint.com
https://json2csharp.com
https://csharp2json.io

[FeastSC2]

@Kurt-Dekker

You cannot.
Instead grab Newtonsoft JSON .NET off the asset store for free, or else install it from the Unity Package Manager (Window → Package Manager).

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/input-management/json-net-for-unity-11347

Looks like a great solution but unfortunately it seems that this asset is not compatible with the newer versions of Unity.
There are some assembly exceptions on Unity v2021.3

[jvo3dc]

JsonUtility.FromJson doesn’t support an array as root. You can add a little text at the front and back to turn things into an object with an array in it and then it will work. Not ideal, but a possible workaround. I think there are quite a few similar topics in the forum here.

How to read a json array

Well, since you now changed the data to actually be json, you can actually load it as json. However Unity's JsonUtility is quite limited. It only supports a single root object and it has to be an object and can't be an array. Second it does not support directly nested arrays, only nested arrays insided objects. Those could be inside another array, but direct nesting is not supported. This is because the JsonUtility class has the same limitations as Unity's normal serialization system. So you h…

ArgumentException: JSON must represent an object type.

Unity’s JsonUtility only supports an object as root object. Your json has an array as the top most element. So you can not load this “directly” with JsonUtility. You have several options. Either use a different Json serializer like Json.NET (Newtonsoft) or maybe my SimpleJSON parser which is not an object mapper but simply a parser, or you could wrap your json artificially in an object and use Unity’s JsonUtility. JsonUtility has several limitations. It does not support multidimensional arrays, …

[Bunny83]

@Kurt-Dekker

You cannot

Yes and no The structure itself should be supported by Unity’s JsonUtility. However the JsonUtility does always expect an object as root element. So you can easily wrap the data in an object. The JsonUtility just has the same limitations as Unity’s serialization system and the data shown here should work when wrapped in an object.

Note: We can’t tell you what you should use for all those empty arrays as it’s not clear what their content may be. For example, the “labels” array contains objects with a “text” and “type” field. We don’t know what may be returned in those other arrays that are always empty in your example. You probably should consult the documentation of the API you’re using to know how the structure looks like. A single example most likely does not cover everything.

Though, maybe you don’t need everything. You can create objects which may only partially map the data that you’re interested in. So any additional data is simply ignored.

So it highly depends on what you actually need. If you just want to access certain fields, you could use my SimplyJSON parser which does not require that you create any custom classes. It just parses the structure into JSONObjects, JSONArrays and other classes for each type json supports. It just simplifies the way you can handle the data.