Document a duplicate-object-key rejection recipe (#5259)

* 📡 Document a duplicate-object-key rejection recipe

RFC 8259 leaves handling of duplicate object keys to the implementation;
this library silently keeps only the last value for a repeated key.
Discussion #5085 asked for an opt-in rejection mode. Decision: don't
change library behavior, but document the existing parser-callback
workaround instead.

Adds a "Recipe: rejecting duplicate object keys" section to
parser_callbacks.md, adapted from a community-contributed workaround.
Fixed an off-by-one bug in the original snippet: object_start reports
the depth of the object's parent, while key events inside that object
report depth+1, so indexing the per-depth key set with the same depth
in both places caused an out-of-bounds access on nested objects.
Verified the published snippet compiles and behaves correctly for flat
duplicates, nested duplicates, sibling objects sharing key names, and
arrays of objects.

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>

* Cross-link the duplicate-key recipe with the existing object_t behavior docs

object_t.md and features/types/index.md already document that duplicate
object keys resolve to an unspecified value (RFC 8259 leaves this to the
implementation). The new recipe's intro overstated this as a guaranteed
"last value wins" rule, which isn't true in general -- parsing text keeps
the last value, but constructing from an initializer list keeps the first.
Reworded the recipe to point at object_t's "unspecified" behavior instead
of asserting a specific rule, and added cross-links from both existing
pages to the new recipe.

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>

* Turn the duplicate-key recipe into a standalone, compiled example

Replace the inline code fence in the "rejecting duplicate object keys"
recipe with a proper docs/mkdocs/docs/examples/*.cpp + .output pair,
included via --8<-- like every other example on the site. The .output
file was generated by running it through the project's actual example
build (docs/Makefile: single_include, -std=c++11, -DJSON_USE_GLOBAL_UDLS=0)
and cross-checked with `make check_output`, and the source passes the
pinned astyle 3.4.13 formatting unchanged.

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>

---------

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
This commit is contained in:
Niels Lohmann
2026-07-09 20:39:59 +02:00
committed by GitHub
parent d0a43141ea
commit 631e667fe5
5 changed files with 97 additions and 2 deletions
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
#include <iostream>
#include <nlohmann/json.hpp>
#include <stdexcept>
#include <string>
#include <unordered_set>
#include <vector>
using json = nlohmann::json;
json parse_strict(const std::string& input)
{
// one key set per nesting depth, reused across sibling objects
std::vector<std::unordered_set<std::string>> keys;
auto reject_duplicate_keys = [&](int depth, json::parse_event_t event, json & parsed)
{
if (event == json::parse_event_t::object_start)
{
// keys of this object are reported at depth+1 (see the event table above)
const auto child_depth = static_cast<std::size_t>(depth) + 1;
if (keys.size() <= child_depth)
{
keys.resize(child_depth + 1);
}
keys[child_depth].clear();
return true;
}
if (event == json::parse_event_t::key)
{
auto& seen = keys[static_cast<std::size_t>(depth)];
const auto& key = parsed.get_ref<const std::string&>();
if (!seen.insert(key).second)
{
throw std::runtime_error("duplicate JSON object key: " + key);
}
return true;
}
return true;
};
return json::parse(input, reject_duplicate_keys);
}
int main()
{
// parsing succeeds when all keys are unique
json j = parse_strict(R"({"one": 1, "two": 2})");
std::cout << j << '\n';
// parsing throws when a key is repeated
try
{
parse_strict(R"({"one": 1, "one": 2})");
}
catch (const std::exception& e)
{
std::cout << e.what() << '\n';
}
}
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
{"one":1,"two":2}
duplicate JSON object key: one