title: How can you deserialize a JSON string using JSON.NET that uses empty quotes rather than null for a field
body: <p>I am trying to deserialize some reddit comments (returned in JSON) using JSON.NET. I have come across a problem where the Comment has a field "Replies", which is either another Comment object, or empty quotes (""). The problem is the JSON.NET deserializer throws an exception when deserializing a field that is expecting an object but finds "" (as I expect it is looking for null rather than "").</p>
  
  <p>Example:</p>
  
  <pre><code>"data":{
  
  "body":"We were being trolled. ",
  "subreddit_id":"t5_2qh1i",
  "author_flair_css_class":null,
  "created":1318984933.0,
  "author_flair_text":null,
  "downs":1,
  "author":"evange",
  "created_utc":1318959733.0,
  "body_html":"&lt;div class=\"md\"&gt;&lt;p&gt;We were being trolled.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;",
  "levenshtein":null,
  "link_id":"t3_lghhj",
  "parent_id":"t3_lghhj",
  "likes":null,
  "replies":"",
  "id":"c2shf1a",
  "subreddit":"AskReddit",
  "ups":6,
  "name":"t1_c2shf1a"
  
     }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>And then this is the :</p>
  
  <pre><code>"data":{
  
      "body":"Dude, it was a Roll Troll. Forget it.",
      "subreddit_id":"t5_2qh1i",
      "author_flair_css_class":null,
      "created":1318985233.0,
      "author_flair_text":null,
      "downs":1,
      "author":"youngmonk",
      "created_utc":1318960033.0,
      "body_html":"&lt;div class=\"md\"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Dude, it was a Roll Troll. Forget it.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;",
      "levenshtein":null,
      "link_id":"t3_lghhj",
      "parent_id":"t3_lghhj",
      "likes":null,
      "replies":{
          "kind":"Listing",
          "data":{
              "modhash":"",
              "children":[....etc
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there a way to deserialize this with JSON.NET, or will I have to do a RegEx to search for "Replies": "" to change all those empty quotes to null?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks!</p>