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
+12
View File
@@ -181,3 +181,15 @@ Execute the test suite with [Valgrind](https://valgrind.org). This option is `OF
Build the experimental [C++ module](../features/modules.md) `nlohmann.json` (requires CMake 3.28 or later and C++20).
This option is `OFF` by default.
A consuming project must link the dedicated `nlohmann_json_modules` CMake target (not just
`nlohmann_json::nlohmann_json`) for `import nlohmann.json;` to resolve:
```cmake
set(NLOHMANN_JSON_BUILD_MODULES ON)
add_subdirectory(path/to/json)
add_executable(myproject main.cpp)
target_link_libraries(myproject PRIVATE nlohmann_json_modules)
target_compile_definitions(myproject PRIVATE NLOHMANN_JSON_BUILD_MODULES)
```