JSON.net: how to deserialize without using the default constructor?

Json.Net prefers to use the default (parameterless) constructor on an object if there is one. If there are multiple constructors and you want Json.Net to use a non-default one, then you can add the [JsonConstructor] attribute to the constructor that you want Json.Net to call.

[JsonConstructor]
public Result(int? code, string format, Dictionary<string, string> details = null)
{
    ...
}

It is important that the constructor parameter names match the corresponding property names of the JSON object (ignoring case) for this to work correctly. You do not necessarily have to have a constructor parameter for every property of the object, however. For those JSON object properties that are not covered by the constructor parameters, Json.Net will try to use the public property accessors (or properties/fields marked with [JsonProperty]) to populate the object after constructing it.

If you do not want to add attributes to your class or don't otherwise control the source code for the class you are trying to deserialize, then another alternative is to create a custom JsonConverter to instantiate and populate your object. For example:

class ResultConverter : JsonConverter
{
    public override bool CanConvert(Type objectType)
    {
        return (objectType == typeof(Result));
    }

    public override object ReadJson(JsonReader reader, Type objectType, object existingValue, JsonSerializer serializer)
    {
        // Load the JSON for the Result into a JObject
        JObject jo = JObject.Load(reader);

        // Read the properties which will be used as constructor parameters
        int? code = (int?)jo["Code"];
        string format = (string)jo["Format"];

        // Construct the Result object using the non-default constructor
        Result result = new Result(code, format);

        // (If anything else needs to be populated on the result object, do that here)

        // Return the result
        return result;
    }

    public override bool CanWrite
    {
        get { return false; }
    }

    public override void WriteJson(JsonWriter writer, object value, JsonSerializer serializer)
    {
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }
}

Then, add the converter to your serializer settings, and use the settings when you deserialize:

JsonSerializerSettings settings = new JsonSerializerSettings();
settings.Converters.Add(new ResultConverter());
Result result = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Result>(jsontext, settings);

A bit late and not exactly suited here, but I'm gonna add my solution here, because my question had been closed as a duplicate of this one, and because this solution is completely different.

I needed a general way to instruct Json.NET to prefer the most specific constructor for a user defined struct type, so I can omit the JsonConstructor attributes which would add a dependency to the project where each such struct is defined.

I've reverse engineered a bit and implemented a custom contract resolver where I've overridden the CreateObjectContract method to add my custom creation logic.

public class CustomContractResolver : DefaultContractResolver {

    protected override JsonObjectContract CreateObjectContract(Type objectType)
    {
        var c = base.CreateObjectContract(objectType);
        if (!IsCustomStruct(objectType)) return c;

        IList<ConstructorInfo> list = objectType.GetConstructors(BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.NonPublic).OrderBy(e => e.GetParameters().Length).ToList();
        var mostSpecific = list.LastOrDefault();
        if (mostSpecific != null)
        {
            c.OverrideCreator = CreateParameterizedConstructor(mostSpecific);
            c.CreatorParameters.AddRange(CreateConstructorParameters(mostSpecific, c.Properties));
        }

        return c;
    }

    protected virtual bool IsCustomStruct(Type objectType)
    {
        return objectType.IsValueType && !objectType.IsPrimitive && !objectType.IsEnum && !objectType.Namespace.IsNullOrEmpty() && !objectType.Namespace.StartsWith("System.");
    }

    private ObjectConstructor<object> CreateParameterizedConstructor(MethodBase method)
    {
        method.ThrowIfNull("method");
        var c = method as ConstructorInfo;
        if (c != null)
            return a => c.Invoke(a);
        return a => method.Invoke(null, a);
    }
}

I'm using it like this.

public struct Test {
  public readonly int A;
  public readonly string B;

  public Test(int a, string b) {
    A = a;
    B = b;
  }
}

var json = JsonConvert.SerializeObject(new Test(1, "Test"), new JsonSerializerSettings {
  ContractResolver = new CustomContractResolver()
});
var t = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<Test>(json);
t.A.ShouldEqual(1);
t.B.ShouldEqual("Test");