Can Json.NET serialize / deserialize to / from a stream?

Question

I have heard that Json.NET is faster than DataContractJsonSerializer, and wanted to give it a try...

But I couldn't find any methods on JsonConvert that take a stream rather than a string.

For deserializing a file containing JSON on WinPhone, for example, I use the following code to read the file contents into a string, and then deserialize into JSON. It appears to be about 4 times slower in my (very ad-hoc) testing than using DataContractJsonSerializer to deserialize straight from the stream...

// DCJS
DataContractJsonSerializer dc = new DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(Constants));
Constants constants = (Constants)dc.ReadObject(stream);

// JSON.NET
string json = new StreamReader(stream).ReadToEnd();
Constants constants = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Constants>(json);

Am I doing it wrong?

Answer 1

The current version of Json.net does not allow you to use the accepted answer code. A current alternative is:

public static object DeserializeFromStream(Stream stream)
{
    var serializer = new JsonSerializer();

    using (var sr = new StreamReader(stream))
    using (var jsonTextReader = new JsonTextReader(sr))
    {
        return serializer.Deserialize(jsonTextReader);
    }
}

Documentation: Deserialize JSON from a file stream