JSON Merge Patch

.NET has great JSON support through System.Text.Json but JSON PATCH support is very limited. This library adds RFC 7396 JSON Merge Patch support to .NET and ASP.NET Core.

Why JSON Merge Patch

Sometimes you don't want to PUT the whole object just to update one property. ASP.NET Core has support for JSON Patch, but JSON patch is a lot more verbose and complicated. JSON merge patch, though a bit limited in some ways, is perfect for when you want to update a single or a couple of values.

Suppose you have this user object:

{
    "id": 37,
    "firstName": "John",
    "lastName": "Doe",
    "email": "john@example.com",
    "phone": "1111111111"
}

With JSON merge patch, updating John's last name is as simple as:

HTTP PATCH

{
    "lastName": "Smith"
}

This is super helpful when working on things such as multi-step forms on large entities and editable data-tables where the user only changes one value at a time.