Make parsing from std::istream and FILE* fast

Squashed onto develop cd6b428ef (CI fixes from #5860). Original commits:

- Let the lexer's bulk fast paths run on a window of the input
- Scan the get area of an input stream in bulk
- Lock a FILE once per parse instead of once per character
- Add benchmarks for parsing from a FILE* and for many values from a stream
- Avoid implicit unsigned char to char conversion in stream tests
- Make file_input_adapter::unlock() safe to call on a moved-from adapter

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
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Niels Lohmann committed 2026-10-16 19:26:50 +02:00
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@@ -133,6 +133,14 @@ When defined, default parse and serialize functions for enums are excluded and h
See [full documentation of `JSON_DISABLE_ENUM_SERIALIZATION`](../api/macros/json_disable_enum_serialization.md).
## `JSON_DISABLE_STREAM_BULK_SCAN`
When defined to `1`, parsing from a `#!cpp std::istream` reads one character at a time instead of scanning the
characters that the stream buffer holds in bulk. Results are the same either way; the macro is an escape hatch for
stream buffers that do not follow the usual `std::streambuf` contract. The default value is `0`.
See [full documentation of `JSON_DISABLE_STREAM_BULK_SCAN`](../api/macros/json_disable_stream_bulk_scan.md).
## `JSON_DISABLE_TUPLE_REFERENCE_CONVERSION`
When defined to `1`, a JSON value can no longer be created from a one-element `std::tuple` holding a reference to a JSON
@@ -141,6 +149,14 @@ is planned to become the default in version 4.0.0.
See [full documentation of `JSON_DISABLE_TUPLE_REFERENCE_CONVERSION`](../api/macros/json_disable_tuple_reference_conversion.md).
## `JSON_DISABLE_UNLOCKED_FILE_IO`
When defined to `1`, parsing from a `#!cpp FILE*` reads every character with `std::fgetc`, which locks the file each
time, instead of locking the file once and reading it with the unlocked stdio functions. Results are the same either
way. The default value is `0`.
See [full documentation of `JSON_DISABLE_UNLOCKED_FILE_IO`](../api/macros/json_disable_unlocked_file_io.md).
## `JSON_NO_AUTOMATIC_UDLS`
When defined, `<nlohmann/json.hpp>` does not include `<nlohmann/json_literals.hpp>` with the user-defined string literals
@@ -55,6 +55,30 @@ whitespace, because `operator>>` consumes the character that terminates a number
[`JSON_PRECISE_STREAM_POSITION`](../../api/macros/json_precise_stream_position.md) is defined to `1` — see the
[`operator>>` notes](../../api/operator_gtgt.md#notes) for details and examples.
## Input sources and performance
All inputs produce the same values and the same exceptions, but they are read in different ways, which makes some of
them faster than others:
| input | how it is read |
|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| strings, string views, string literals, contiguous containers, pointer or iterator ranges over contiguous memory | the whole input is scanned in bulk: runs of string characters, numbers, and indentation are recognized several bytes at a time |
| `#!cpp std::istream` (`#!cpp std::ifstream`, `#!cpp std::istringstream`, ...) | the characters the stream buffer holds are scanned in bulk like a string; the stream buffer is asked for more when they are used up |
| `#!cpp FILE*` | one character at a time, with the file locked once for the whole parse |
| other iterator ranges (e.g., `#!cpp std::list<char>`, `#!cpp std::istreambuf_iterator<char>`), wide strings | one character at a time |
Parsing a file from a `#!cpp std::ifstream` is therefore only about 10 to 20 % slower than reading the whole file into a
`#!cpp std::string` first and parsing that, and it needs no memory for a copy of the file. The stream is never read
ahead: after parsing, it is positioned exactly as if every character had been read one at a time, so
[`operator>>`](../../api/operator_gtgt.md) can still read several values from one stream (see also
[JSON Lines](json_lines.md)).
Two macros switch these optimizations off without changing any result:
[`JSON_DISABLE_STREAM_BULK_SCAN`](../../api/macros/json_disable_stream_bulk_scan.md) for stream buffers that do not
follow the usual `std::streambuf` contract, and
[`JSON_DISABLE_UNLOCKED_FILE_IO`](../../api/macros/json_disable_unlocked_file_io.md) for programs in which another
thread must use the same `#!cpp FILE` object while it is parsed.
## SAX vs. DOM parsing
The library offers two parsing models: