Review and extend the documentation, and check it in CI (#5638)

* Review and extend the documentation, and check it in CI

A review of all documentation pages found factual errors, dead links,
missing cross-references, and gaps in examples. This fixes them and adds
checks so the same problems are caught automatically.

Fixes:
- wrong signatures and version histories (operator!= C++20 member,
  binary() subtype type, get<PointerType>(), JSON_NO_THREAD_LOCAL, ...)
- stale descriptions (number parsing since #5283, UBJSON table, SAX
  example that no longer compiled, tsl::ordered_map advice)
- dead internal and external links; repology.org badges (the domain is
  suspended) replaced by badges that query the registries directly
- deprecation notes link the migration guide; the guide itself fixed

Additions:
- "See also" sections, cross-references, 25 runnable examples, 12
  Mermaid diagrams, new API pages for json_pointer::operator<=> and
  byte_container_with_subtype::operator==/!=
- landing page, guides for untrusted input and performance
- "unreleased" badge after versions newer than the latest release

Checks:
- strict documentation build (broken links/anchors fail it); CI and
  the publish workflow fetch the full history the build needs
- weekly external link check, Mermaid syntax check in CI
- check_structure.py: example titles, heading levels, alt texts,
  header links, docset index coverage; its unused-example check works
  again
- all examples produce the same output on every platform

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

* Keep the customer links that could not be fixed

A dead link on the customers page is still the evidence of where the
use of the library was documented. Keep the original URLs of the entries
without a working replacement (Marne, Cisco Webex Desk Camera, Philips
Hue, CyberArk) and exclude exactly these URLs from the link check.

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

* Correct the duplicate-key recipe's claim about SAX positions

The SAX interface's key() receives no position either; only parse_error()
does. Also note that the recipe does not report the path to the repeated
key (see discussion #5085).

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

* Say the library is available as a single header and mention json_fwd.hpp

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

* Correct documentation errors found while hunting for bugs

- patch/patch_inplace: list the JSON pointer errors parse_error.106-109
  and out_of_range.402/404, and quote the actual parse_error.105 message.
- unflatten: list parse_error.106/107/108 and out_of_range.404.
- to_bson: list out_of_range.415 (binary subtype above 255) and note
  that 412 and 415 are new in 3.13.0.
- to_string: state that string_t must be convertible to std::string, also
  in the StringType requirements table.
- JSON Lines: a `while (input >> j)` loop also throws after the last value
  for concatenated JSON values; show a loop that works for both.
- BON8: a string gets 0xFF only if nothing follows it in the message; a
  string at the end of an array or object is ended by 0xFE.
- custom_string_type.hpp: add operator+=(char), which the "Always
  required" list asks for (json_pointer::to_string, flatten, unflatten,
  and diff did not compile), and an ADL int_to_string for diff and items.

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

* Cache the release headers with functools.lru_cache

Codacy (Pylint) flagged the mutable default argument that header() used
as its cache. functools.lru_cache keeps the same memoization without it.
The script's output is unchanged.

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

---------

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
This commit is contained in:
Niels Lohmann
2026-10-02 11:32:15 +02:00
committed by GitHub
parent 48ff79647f
commit 63c10a51fc
276 changed files with 5318 additions and 624 deletions
@@ -2,8 +2,9 @@
## Overview
With a parser callback function, the result of parsing a JSON text can be influenced. When passed to `parse`, it is
called on certain events (passed as `parse_event_t` via parameter `event`) with a set recursion depth `depth` and
With a parser callback function, the result of parsing a JSON text can be influenced. When passed to
[`parse`](../../api/basic_json/parse.md), it is called on certain events (passed as
[`parse_event_t`](../../api/basic_json/parse_event_t.md) via parameter `event`) with a set recursion depth `depth` and
context JSON value `parsed`. The return value of the callback function is a boolean indicating whether the element that
emitted the callback shall be kept or not.
@@ -30,7 +31,7 @@ table describes the values of the parameters `depth`, `event`, and `parsed`.
| `parse_event_t::array_end` | the parser read `]` and finished processing a JSON array | depth of the parent of the JSON array | the parsed JSON array |
| `parse_event_t::value` | the parser finished reading a JSON value | depth of the value | the parsed JSON value |
??? example
??? example "Example: sequence of callback events"
When parsing the following JSON text,
@@ -76,7 +77,7 @@ was called:
- In case a value outside a structured type is skipped, it is replaced with `#!json null`. This case happens if the
top-level element is skipped.
??? example
??? example "Example: skip an object key while parsing"
The example below demonstrates the `parse()` function with and without callback function.
@@ -98,7 +99,7 @@ the resulting `#!c json` value -- once parsing has produced that value, the dupl
storage maps each key to a single value. If duplicate keys should instead be treated as an error, a parser callback
can detect them while the object is still being read, before that ambiguity ever applies.
??? example
??? example "Example: reject duplicate object keys"
```cpp
--8<-- "examples/reject_duplicate_keys.cpp"
@@ -110,16 +111,18 @@ can detect them while the object is still being read, before that ambiguity ever
--8<-- "examples/reject_duplicate_keys.output"
```
This approach has two limitations:
This approach has three limitations:
- The depth-indexed bookkeeping must account for the fact that `object_start` reports the depth of the *parent* of
the object, while the `key` events inside that object are reported one depth deeper (see the event table above);
it is easy to get this off by one for nested objects.
- The thrown exception cannot carry a `parse_error`-style byte offset, because position tracking only exists inside
the parser and lexer, not at the callback layer.
- The exception only names the repeated key, not where it occurs in the document. Reporting its full path requires
maintaining a stack of the enclosing keys and array indices in the callback as well.
For strict validation with precise error positions, implementing a [SAX interface](sax_interface.md) instead gives
access to the parser's position information directly.
A [SAX interface](sax_interface.md) does not lift the position limitation: its `key` function receives no position
either -- only `parse_error` is passed the byte position.
## Recipe: streaming a large homogeneous array
@@ -129,7 +132,7 @@ discard it, so memory usage stays bounded by a single element (plus the not-yet-
than the whole document. Since the top-level array's `array_start`/`array_end` are reported at `depth == 0` (its
parent is the document root), the object elements it contains are reported at `depth == 1`:
??? example
??? example "Example: stream a large top-level array"
```cpp
std::ifstream input("large_array.json");
@@ -154,7 +157,7 @@ homogeneous values by checking `object_end`/`value` events at `depth == 1` there
Since there is no built-in nesting-depth limit (see the note above), a callback can enforce one manually by
tracking the maximum `depth` seen and throwing once it is exceeded:
??? example
??? example "Example: limit the nesting depth"
```cpp
constexpr int max_depth = 32;