Fix documentation gaps found in a full GitHub Discussions review (#5264)

* 📡 Fix documentation gaps found in a full GitHub Discussions review

Reviewed all 1008 GitHub Discussions (2020-2026) for recurring questions
that better or more visible documentation would have avoided. Adds/expands
documentation for ~26 distinct gaps, including:

- New "Debugging" page collecting natvis, GDB pretty printer, LLDB status,
  and JSON_DIAGNOSTICS pointers (previously scattered/undiscoverable)
- Thread-safety and schema-validation FAQ entries
- StringType's char-based requirement (no wstring/u16string/u32string)
- Brace-initialization-yields-arrays warning directly on the constructor
  reference page (previously only in the FAQ, missed by users reading
  the constructor docs)
- std::any exclusion from get<T>(), with a manual-dispatch example
- Non-string-keyed std::map serializing as an array of pairs
- ordered_json compatibility with NLOHMANN_DEFINE_TYPE_* macros
  (already worked, was undocumented)
- std::array truncation on size-mismatched conversion (no exception)
- static_cast vs. get<std::optional<T>>() divergence
- Recipe for omitting a std::optional field instead of emitting null
- No built-in nesting-depth limit during parsing + a callback-based
  workaround recipe
- Recipe for streaming a large homogeneous array via parser callbacks
- operator>> stream-position semantics for concatenated JSON values
- JSON Pointer array-vs-object creation rule for non-existing paths
- CMake target name (nlohmann_json_modules) needed to link C++20 modules
- ESP-IDF/PlatformIO: no official package, link to a community fork
- get(key, default) as the Python dict.get() equivalent
- reserve() recipe for pre-allocating array capacity
- JSONC as an alias for the existing ignore_comments/ignore_trailing_commas
  combination (distinct from the unsupported JSON5)
- items() dereferenced-element type: decltype() idiom + detail-namespace
  stability caveat
- Various macro/type-conversion limitations (MSGPACK_DEFINE_ARRAY
  equivalent, char-array round-tripping, ADL serializer macro gap)

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

* 🚶 fix format

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

---------

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
This commit is contained in:
Niels Lohmann
2026-07-10 16:01:08 +02:00
committed by GitHub
parent b630f5e9c7
commit e9c3985f0a
23 changed files with 367 additions and 3 deletions
+43
View File
@@ -84,6 +84,49 @@ which forces the explicit `get` form and can catch unintended conversions at com
j_null.get_to(opt); // ✅ std::nullopt
```
!!! warning "`static_cast` and `get<std::optional<T>>()` are not guaranteed equivalent"
`operator ValueType()` (used by `static_cast` and implicit conversions) intentionally excludes
`std::optional<T>` from delegating to `get<T>()`, to avoid a constructor ambiguity with
`std::optional<T>`'s own converting constructor from `basic_json`. As a result,
`static_cast<std::optional<T>>(json_value)` goes through `std::optional<T>`'s own converting
constructor rather than through `get<std::optional<T>>()`, which can behave differently -- for example,
with a custom `adl_serializer<std::optional<T>>` specialization. Prefer `get<std::optional<T>>()`/`get_to()`
over `static_cast` for optional types.
!!! warning "Converting to a fixed-size `std::array` does not check length"
Converting a JSON array to `#!cpp std::array<T, N>` does not check that the JSON array's size matches `N`:
if the JSON array is longer, the extra elements are silently dropped; if it is shorter, the remaining
`std::array` elements are left default-constructed. No exception is thrown in either case.
```cpp
json j = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5};
auto a = j.get<std::array<int, 3>>(); // {1, 2, 3} -- elements 4 and 5 silently dropped
```
## Omitting a field when serializing `std::optional`
By default, `to_json` for `std::optional<T>` writes either the value or `#!json null` -- there is no built-in way
to make a field disappear from the serialized object entirely when the `std::optional` is `std::nullopt`. Because
a specialization of `adl_serializer<std::optional<T>>` only controls how the *value* is converted (it cannot
prevent the containing object's `to_json` from inserting the key in the first place), omission has to be
implemented in the *containing* type's `to_json`:
```cpp
struct person {
std::string name;
std::optional<int> age;
};
void to_json(json& j, const person& p) {
j = json{{"name", p.name}};
if (p.age) {
j["age"] = *p.age; // key is only inserted when the optional has a value
}
}
```
## Putting values in
The reverse direction works the same way: assigning or constructing a `json` from a C++ value converts it to JSON.