Files
json/tests/fuzzing.md
Niels Lohmann 1e101ecac1 Add BON8 support (#2998)
* Add BON8 support

Add to_bon8/from_bon8 and input_format_t::bon8 for BON8, a binary format
that uses the byte values that cannot begin a UTF-8 character as type
markers, so strings need no length prefix. It is the most compact of the
supported binary formats on the benchmark files.

The reader is non-recursive like the other binary readers. A string ends
at the first byte that cannot continue it, so the reader hands the one or
two bytes it reads past a string back to the value that follows. The
writer produces the canonical representation of the specification, except
for NFC normalization; its output is identical to that of the reference
implementation (HikoGUI) on all files of the test data.

The round-trip tests need the .bon8 files of json_test_data 3.2.0.

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

* Address review comments

- Reuse detail::validate_one_utf8 to check strings in to_bon8; the error
  now names the first byte of the invalid sequence.
- Document that to_bon8 leaves bytes in the output adapter on an
  exception, and that string_open is only an output of write_bon8_marker.
- Explain why the pushback buffer of the BON8 reader cannot overflow.

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

* Select the BON8 float prefix by type

get_bon8_float_prefix only depends on the type of its argument, so make
the type a template parameter instead of passing an unused value.

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

* Rename a test variable that Flawfinder mistakes for read()

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

* Fix the BON8 CI failures

- compare the float in write_bon8_float with number_float_t constants,
  so GCC does not warn about a float-to-double conversion
- mark check_bon8_utf8's context as used when exceptions are disabled
- choose the compact float prefix in a helper rather than with nested
  conditional operators (clang-tidy)
- use auto for the cast in the BON8 integer reader (clang-tidy)
- write the int32 minimum test values as long long literals (MSVC C4146)

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

* Amalgamate

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

* Read BON8 strings in bulk from contiguous input

- copy the valid UTF-8 of a string in one step when the input is
  contiguous (twitter.json is read in 1.68 instead of 2.52 ms,
  jeopardy.json in 196 instead of 297 ms, close to CBOR and MessagePack)
- share the new valid_utf8_prefix() with the writer's UTF-8 check, which
  now skips ASCII 8 bytes at a time
- let the fuzzer check that contiguous and stream input give the same
  value or error, and test both paths in the unit tests
- clarify that a second 0xFF after a string is an empty string

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

* Link the BON8 functions from the other binary format pages

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

* Name the bulk scan flag after the input, not BON8

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

* Read BSON keys in bulk from contiguous input

BSON keys (and array indices) are C-style strings, which were read byte
by byte. For contiguous input they are now read up to their \x00-byte in
one step, using the same bulk_scan flag as BON8 strings: twitter.json is
read in 1.46 instead of 2.01 ms, citm_catalog.json in 2.93 instead of
3.33 ms, jeopardy.json in 182 instead of 207 ms. canada.json, whose keys
are almost all one-digit array indices, takes 2 % longer.

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

* Fix the BON8 CI failures of the bulk-read tests

- skip the contiguous-versus-stream tests of BON8 strings and BSON keys
  when exceptions are disabled: they catch the parse errors of invalid
  input, and without exceptions the library aborts instead
- use static_cast for the int64 test value (google-readability-casting)

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

* Move the explicit basic_json instantiation into its own test file

Linking test-regression3_cpp20 with clang and MinGW failed with
"relocation truncated to fit: IMAGE_REL_AMD64_REL32 against `.rdata'",
as test-regression2 did before #5511. The explicit instantiation of
basic_json<> for #4825 compiles every member function, including the
BON8 reader and writer, into that object, and it was already close to
the limit (2,226,104 bytes on develop, 2,234,960 with BON8; clang -O1,
C++20).

Give the instantiation a file of its own: unit-regression3 is now
1,594,736 bytes and unit-explicit_instantiation 1,095,064. The new file
mentions JSON_HAS_CPP_17 and JSON_HAS_CPP_20 so it keeps being built
for the C++17 standard the regression was about.

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

* Convert the bytes of the BON8 test strings explicitly

The str() helper constructed a std::string from a byte range, which
converts each unsigned char implicitly; -fsanitize=integer reports that
for bytes of 0x80 and above (ci_test_clang_sanitizer).

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

---------

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
2026-09-27 16:56:21 +02:00

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Markdown

# Fuzz testing
Each parser of the library (JSON, BJData, BON8, BSON, CBOR, MessagePack, and UBJSON) can be fuzz tested. Currently,
[libFuzzer](https://llvm.org/docs/LibFuzzer.html) and [afl++](https://github.com/AFLplusplus/AFLplusplus) are supported.
## Corpus creation
For most effective fuzzing, a [corpus](https://llvm.org/docs/LibFuzzer.html#corpus) should be provided. A corpus is a
directory with some simple input files that cover several features of the parser and is hence a good starting point
for mutations.
```shell
TEST_DATA_VERSION=3.2.0
wget https://github.com/nlohmann/json_test_data/archive/refs/tags/v$TEST_DATA_VERSION.zip
unzip v$TEST_DATA_VERSION.zip
rm v$TEST_DATA_VERSION.zip
for FORMAT in json bjdata bon8 bson cbor msgpack ubjson
do
rm -fr corpus_$FORMAT
mkdir corpus_$FORMAT
find json_test_data-$TEST_DATA_VERSION -size -5k -name "*.$FORMAT" -exec cp "{}" "corpus_$FORMAT" \;
done
rm -fr json_test_data-$TEST_DATA_VERSION
```
The generated corpus can be used with both libFuzzer and afl++. The remainder of this documentation assumes the corpus
directories have been created in the `tests` directory.
## libFuzzer
To use libFuzzer, you need to pass `-fsanitize=fuzzer` as `FUZZER_ENGINE`. In the `tests` directory, call
```shell
make fuzzers FUZZER_ENGINE="-fsanitize=fuzzer"
```
This creates a fuzz tester binary for each parser that supports these
[command line options](https://llvm.org/docs/LibFuzzer.html#options).
In case your default compiler is not a Clang compiler that includes libFuzzer (Clang 6.0 or later), you need to set the
`CXX` variable accordingly. Note the compiler provided by Xcode (AppleClang) does not contain libFuzzer. Please install
Clang via Homebrew calling `brew install llvm` and add `CXX=$(brew --prefix llvm)/bin/clang` to the `make` call:
```shell
make fuzzers FUZZER_ENGINE="-fsanitize=fuzzer" CXX=$(brew --prefix llvm)/bin/clang
```
Then pass the corpus directory as command-line argument (assuming it is located in `tests`):
```shell
./parse_cbor_fuzzer corpus_cbor
```
The fuzzer should be able to run indefinitely without crashing. In case of a crash, the tested input is dumped into
a file starting with `crash-`.
## afl++
To use afl++, you need to pass `-fsanitize=fuzzer` as `FUZZER_ENGINE`. It will be replaced by a `libAFLDriver.a` to
re-use the same code written for libFuzzer with afl++. Furthermore, set `afl-clang-fast++` as compiler.
```shell
CXX=afl-clang-fast++ make fuzzers FUZZER_ENGINE="-fsanitize=fuzzer"
```
Then the fuzzer is called like this in the `tests` directory:
```shell
afl-fuzz -i corpus_cbor -o out -- ./parse_cbor_fuzzer
```
The fuzzer should be able to run indefinitely without crashing. In case of a crash, the tested input is written to the
directory `out`.
## OSS-Fuzz
The library is further fuzz-tested 24/7 by Google's [OSS-Fuzz project](https://github.com/google/oss-fuzz). It uses
the same `fuzzers` target as above and also relies on the `FUZZER_ENGINE` variable. See the used
[build script](https://github.com/google/oss-fuzz/blob/master/projects/json/build.sh) for more information.
In case the build at OSS-Fuzz fails, an issue will be created automatically.
### Handling OSS-Fuzz reports
OSS-Fuzz files the crashes it finds in its own [issue tracker](https://issues.oss-fuzz.com), not on GitHub. So that
each report can be traced to the change that fixed it, and each fix to the report it answers, fixes follow these
conventions:
- **Reference the OSS-Fuzz issue in the pull request**, next to any GitHub issue it closes, as `OSS-Fuzz: <id>` (for
example, `OSS-Fuzz: 563659413`), and in the commit message. The ID alone does not disclose the crash. If the report
was triaged into a GitHub issue, link the OSS-Fuzz issue there too.
- **Turn the reproducer into a unit test.** Download the testcase from the OSS-Fuzz report, reduce it if possible, and
add it as a regression test to the unit test of the affected format (e.g., `tests/src/unit-bjdata.cpp`), with a
comment naming the OSS-Fuzz issue. This way the input is checked by every CI run rather than only by OSS-Fuzz, and
it stays covered even if OSS-Fuzz later closes the report as not reproducible.
- **Keep the fuzzer drivers and the unit tests in sync.** The round-trip checks of the UBJSON and BJData drivers are
also run on a fixed corpus in the unit tests (see `tests/src/round_trip_corpus.hpp` and the "round-trip invariants"
test cases), so a regression shows up in CI first. When a driver's checks change, change the unit tests with them.
- **Record in the report whether the bug shipped.** OSS-Fuzz asks whether a crash was a short-lived regression or
affects a released version; answer it when the fix is merged, as it decides whether the fix needs a release note or
a security advisory (see the [security policy](../.github/SECURITY.md)).
After the fix is merged, OSS-Fuzz re-runs the reproducer on its next build and marks the report as verified and
closed. If it does not, the fix is incomplete.