to_json for pairs, tuples

[hsdk123]

Hi, I was wondering if there might be a simple way to to_json() pairs and tuples, instead of having to explicitly create each element for json.

[nlohmann]

I'm not sure what you mean. Could you provide more details or an example please?

[hsdk123]

Thanks for the reply! For example, let's say i want to encode an std::pair<int, int> into json.
Ideally:

struct Person
{
    std::pair<int, int> position
};

	void to_json( json& j, const Person& d )
	{
		j = json{
			{ "position", d.position }
		};
	}
	void from_json( const json& j, Person& d )
	{
		d.position= j.at( "position" ).get<std::pair<int, int>>();
	}

But sadly this gives an error.
Instead, I have to encode each element of the pair (or tuple) explicitly as a different json element, which can get slightly troublesome.

Hopefully I've just misunderstood something and there is a direct method, otherwise it would be absolutely great to be able to do this.

[gregmarr]

Have you tried something like this? (I'm not sure if it will work, just speculating)

void to_json( json& j, const Person& d )
{
	to_json(j["position"], d.position);
}
void from_json( const json& j, lvn::NTextbox::NChar::Data& d )
{
	from_json(j["position"], d.position);
}

[nlohmann]

There is no default conversion between json and std::pair. You need to provide translations from/to arrays. This would work:

#include "json.hpp"

using json = nlohmann::json;

struct Person
{
    std::pair<int, int> position;
};

void to_json( json& j, const Person& d )
{
    // encode pair as a list
    j = json{ { "position", {d.position.first, d.position.second} } };
}

void from_json( const json& j, Person& d )
{
    auto& pos = j.at("position");
    // decode list as pair
    d.position = std::make_pair(pos[0], pos[1]);
}

int main()
{
    // create a person
    Person p;
    p.position = {17, 42};
    
    // person -> json
    json j = p;
    std::cout << std::setw(2) << j << std::endl;
    
    // json -> person
    Person p2 = j;
    std::cout << std::boolalpha << (p.position == p2.position) << std::endl;
}

[theodelrieu]

I added support for std::pair in a recent PR, however it requires the .first to be a compatible string type , so it can represent the combination of a string field, and a JSON object.

I didn't think about representing pairs as arrays (e.g. std::pair<int, int>), this should be discussed, and we might need to revert my PR.

[gregmarr]

In my own codebase, I have a function that encodes them as an object withfirst and second members.

[nlohmann]

I think encoding pairs and tuples as JSON arrays could be a good idea. However, I am not sure about std::pair<std::string, X> in this context. I think a single pair should not be encoded as JSON object.

[theodelrieu]

Since almost any to_json method provided by the library can be overwritten, we could provide a reasonable default for std::pair.

Fixing #600 while staying generic-friendly in the implementation of to_json(CompatibleObjectType) is quite hard, especially if we need to rely on CompatibleObjectType::value_type...

I don't really know what to do with this std::pair problem

[theodelrieu]

I think you're right, we should convert pairs and tuples as arrays, element ordering being mandatory for those.

People with custom conversions with std::pair (like @gregmarr) won't be impacted by this change anyway.

[nlohmann]

Exactly. I wanted to write the same. I think it is a good and predictable behavior to use arrays.

[theodelrieu]

Ok, I have (finally) some time to work on the library, I'm starting to implement this. I will then try to extract some nested classes as we discussed in #474.

[nlohmann]

Great. #458 shows some challenges when it comes to parsing. Some restructuring of the code may help here.

[gregmarr]

I wouldn't be affected anyway, as my functions were written before to_json and from_json were added to the library and thus are completely outside the library.

[nlohmann]

With #624, the library now also supports the conversion from/to std::pair, std::tuple, and std::array.