Niels Lohmann 68e4094cdc Read CBOR containers and tags without recursing per nesting level ...

get_cbor_array() and get_cbor_object() read their elements by calling back
into the value reader, which called them again for a nested container, and a
tag was handled by reading the tagged value the same way. All three cost
native stack, and all three cost a single byte to encode: 0x9F opens an
indefinite-length array, 0x81 a one-element array, and 0xC2 is a tag. Half a
million of any of them crashes the process before the input runs out (#5104).

Apply the shape the MessagePack reader already uses: the open containers live
on the heap stack, parse_cbor_value() reads a single value and only opens a
container rather than reading it to its end, and parse_cbor_internal() loops,
resuming the innermost container after each element.

Two things are specific to CBOR. An indefinite-length container ends at a
break marker rather than at a count, and testing for that marker consumes a
byte which is the first byte of the next element when it is not one; the
frame's count is npos for those, and the driver tracks whether the next value
starts at a fresh byte. And a tag is not a value of its own: instead of
reading the tagged value by recursing, the value reader reports that a tag was
read and the driver reads on, so a chain of tags costs no stack at all.

The switch that decodes a value is unchanged apart from the twelve container
cases and the two tag sites. Verified against the previous commit over
definite and indefinite arrays and maps, all four counted forms, empty
containers, nesting of the forms inside each other, truncated inputs, and all
three tag handlers: identical values, error codes, messages and byte offsets.
500,000 levels of each of the three vectors now report parse_error.110 instead
of crashing, and a well-formed 200,000-level value is read to completion.

On performance: the driver does per element what a counted loop used to do
per container, and CBOR pays for it more than MessagePack because the value
reader also has to be told whether to fetch a byte. Parsing 60,000 small
objects and one array of a million integers is 3 to 4 % slower than the
recursive reader, measured over five alternating runs. Against develop the
same two inputs are about 44 % faster, because the entry point no longer
copies the value it parsed; the earlier commit in this series is what pays
for that.

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

2026-09-06 18:21:55 +02:00

..

json_fwd.hpp

📄 adjust year (#5044)

2026-01-01 20:00:39 +01:00

json.hpp

Read CBOR containers and tags without recursing per nesting level

2026-09-06 18:21:55 +02:00