Projection approach question

[zihotki]

I see that currently projection happens on the level above serializer and it works by modifying JObjects to fit requested projection. I wonder if you also considered other approaches like handling it on the level of serializer itself similar to how it's implemented in this rejected PR - JamesNK/Newtonsoft.Json@baae3ba . It seems to me that that approach should help to minimize performance impact since it just ignores the non-included fields.

[dotarj]

Hi @zihotki, yes, I did try to solve the projection using the default Json.NET serializer but ran into a dead end at the time and ended up using LINQ to JSON. The PR you linked looks interesting, but it's basically a (partially) custom implemented JSON serializer using Json.NET, right? It would be nice if it could be solved using the default Json.NET serializer. At the time I was hoping a ShouldSerialize method could be made available through JsonSerializerSeetings which's has a path parameter for the current property path (with nesting, maybe using JSON path), which can be implemented by library consumers (I never made a PR though). Or maybe there is another way to tell the serializer to only seriaize specific paths. You are right that it will be a huge performance improvement if partial response would not use LINQ to JSON. Maybe @JamesNK can tell if there is another way to achieve optional serialization using paths?