Getting Started

json uses json_ prefix for all functions e.g. json_parse(). There are only a few types which represents json document, json object, json array and json value (as string).

  • json_doc_t represents JSON document. It stores root JSON node and allocated memory.
  • json_t represents JSON object. Arrays also are json object.
  • json_array_t represents JSON array. It inherits json_t, so you can cast array to json object.
  • json_type_t represents JSON type.

Allocations:

json doesn’t alloc any memory for JSON contents, keys and values… It ONLY allocs memory for DOM-tree (json tokens), that’s it.

It creates pointers to actual data, so you must retain JSON data until you have finished to process json.

After you finished to parse JSON, this is the order that you must use to free-ing things:

  1. free original JSON data
  2. free json_doc

actually the order doesn’t matter but you must free the json doc which is returned from json_parse().

Design and Data Structure:

json creates a TREE to traverse JSON. Every json object’s child node has key pointer. A value of json_t may be one of these:

  • Child node
  • String contents

you must use type member of json object to identify the value type. If you need to integer, float or boolean values, then you can use util functions to get these values. These functions will be failed if the value is not string.

VERY IMPORTANT:

key and value ARE JUST POINTERS to original data. Because of this, you will see that json object has keySize and valueSize members. When comparing two keys, you must use keySize. Instead of strcmp() you could use strncmp() and its friends, because it has size parameter which is our keySize

You can also use built-in helper to compare two keys: json_key_eq()

Also when copying values you must also use valueSize. You could use json_string_dup() to duplicate strings. It is better to not copy contents as possible as much.

UTILITIES / HELPERS:

json library also provides some inline utiliy functions to make things easier while handling json data.