WebSharper.Json: handle obj

[Tarmil]

Currently the behavior for JSON serialization is inconsistent between the client and the server. Considering the following code:

WebSharper.Json.Deserialize<obj>("42")

On the server, it throws an exception; and on the client, it doesn't throw but returns a useless empty object, result of calling the obj constructor.

There are two possibilities to have more consistent behavior:

• Don't try to implement obj deserialization, and throw a compile-time error when this is called from the client-side.

• Do implement obj deserialization, in which case we have to decide what the behavior should be.

  • on the client side: presumably just return the parsed value (ie one of: null, a boolean, a string, a number, an array or a plain object).
  • on the server side:
    • null, boolean, string would return a value of the corresponding type.
    • number: should it always return float, or should it return int if the value is an integer and float otherwise?
    • array: presumably return a recursively parsed obj[]?
    • object: presumably return a recursively parsed Dictionary<string, obj>?