c# - Serializng and deserializing empty arrays to Dictionary/object -

i'm working on silverlight 3 application has communicate php 5.2.13 server app. we're using json.net finish job, i'm having problems dictionaries.

i'm doing experiments , trying deserialize object contains dictionary:

public dictionary<string, block> table {   { return m_table; }   set { m_table = value; } } 

c# serializes , i'm happy it, on php side, when serializing equivalent object has empty table, won't work.

$this->table = array(); 

the problem empty arrays, obviously, aren't considered assoc array , exported [] instead of {}.

i thought of adding 'null' => null array (force assoc) , clean-up in client, don't control client c# objects neither can constraint them nullable so... i'm stuck on 1 ;)

do know of solution?

thanks time, appreciated :)

edit: clarify, can't control structure of both, c# , php objects. on test i've created object contains dictionary hole object gets encoded @ once. here's on simplified version of it:

class block {   public $x = 0;   public $y = 0;   public $name = '';   public $children = array();   public $table = array();   public $nested = null; } 

where table should dictionary , encoded as

echo json_encode( new block() ); 

you can use json_force_object flag force [] become {}, so:

$b = array();  echo "empty array output array: " . json_encode($b) . "\n"; echo "empty array output object: " . json_encode($b, json_force_object); 

the output:

[] {} 

note without option on, associative arrays encoded using object notation.

from: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.json-encode.php

edit

according this question, casting data object before encoding work:

$b = array(); json_encode((object)$b); 

edit

the way solve little hackish, work:

$block = new block();  $json = json_encode($block); $json = str_replace("[]", "{}", $json);  echo $json; 

this searches resultant json [] , replaces {}. problem have aware of if, example, name []. changed {}. around parsing json , reconstructing it, replacing [] {} when not part of string literal. but, may able make assumption [] never part of string literal.