Files
json/tools/macro_builder
Niels Lohmann 35802e78d6 Remove dead Makefile targets; document macro_builder; tidy serve_header (#5735)
* Remove dead doctest help entry and pretty_format target from Makefile

The top-level Makefile still carried three leftovers:

- The help text listed a "doctest" target that was removed in #4560,
  so "make doctest" fails with "No rule to make target". The example
  check now runs as "make check_output -C docs".
- "pretty_format" ran clang-format on all sources, but .clang-format
  was deleted in #4573, so the target reformatted everything in the
  default LLVM style, against the Artistic Style formatting that
  "make pretty" applies and CI enforces.
- "clean" removed benchmarks/files/numbers/*.json, a directory that no
  longer exists since the benchmarks moved to tests/benchmarks (#3462).

Only maintainer tooling changes; the library is not affected.

Part of #5717

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

* Document tools/macro_builder and tidy up serve_header.py

tools/macro_builder generates the NLOHMANN_JSON_EXPAND,
NLOHMANN_JSON_GET_MACRO and NLOHMANN_JSON_PASTE* macros in
macro_scope.hpp, but nothing referred to it. Add a README that explains
what it generates, how to run it and where the output goes, and which
dependent tables (NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE, NLOHMANN_JSON_TYPE_BODY)
are maintained by hand. Point to it from a comment above
NLOHMANN_JSON_EXPAND. The generator itself is unchanged; following the
README reproduces the header byte for byte.

In serve_header.py, drop the LGTM suppression (LGTM.com shut down in
2022), replace the """.""" placeholder docstrings with real ones, and
import socket and ssl at module level. DualStackServer.server_bind uses
socket, which was only imported under __main__; when the module was
imported instead, the NameError was swallowed and IPV6_V6ONLY was not
cleared.

The header change is a comment only; behavior, API and ABI are
unchanged.

Part of #5717

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

* Hash every release_files artifact, not a hardcoded subset

The `release` target signed and copied json_fwd.hpp into release_files
alongside json.hpp, but the shasum line that writes hashes.txt only
listed json.hpp, include.zip and json.tar.xz. Users could not verify
the published json_fwd.hpp against hashes.txt.

Hash every file in release_files except the .asc signatures instead
of naming files by hand, so a newly shipped header (such as the
json_literals.hpp that #5610 adds to this target) cannot be missed
again.

Only affects the generated hashes.txt release artifact; the library
itself is unaffected.

Overlaps #5610, which touches the same lines to add json_literals.hpp
to the release target.

#5717 item 1

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

* Remove the broken fuzz_testing* Makefile targets

fuzz_testing and fuzz_testing_{bon8,bson,cbor,msgpack,ubjson} seeded
fuzz-testing/testcases from tests/data, which was removed in dbf1a1f41
(2020) when the test data moved to the external json_test_data repo.
The find command found nothing, but the pipeline's exit status was
that of xargs, so the recipe still reported success with an empty
corpus, and the printed afl-fuzz command would refuse to start.

The recipes were also six near-identical copies with unquoted -name
patterns, used the legacy CXX=afl-clang++, and fuzzing-start/stop were
missing from both the help output and .PHONY. tests/fuzzing.md already
documents the working flow (download json_test_data, then
`make -C tests fuzzers`), so replace the six broken targets and their
help lines with a single pointer to that document instead of trying
to keep six copies of a fragile shell pipeline in sync.

This does not affect OSS-Fuzz, which builds through tests/Makefile.

Overlaps #5621, which adds a seventh copy of the same broken line for
fuzz_testing_json_view.

#5717 item 2

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

* Remove stale Travis comment above check-amalgamation

check-amalgamation carried "Note: this target is called by Travis",
left over from before the project switched off Travis CI. The prior
Makefile cleanup commit removed the other stale Travis-era leftovers
(the doctest help entry, pretty_format, and the benchmarks/ path in
clean) but missed this comment.

#5717 item 4

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

* Fix stale install/usage instructions in the vendored amalgamate README

tools/amalgamate/README.md is the unmodified upstream text and no
longer matches how the tool is used here:

- It named a Bitbucket origin that no longer exists; CHANGES.md
  already tracks the GitHub mirror commit this copy is based on.
- It asked for Python 2.7, but CI and the Makefile run the script
  with python3.
- It told readers to run ./test.sh (not vendored) and install to
  /usr/local/bin; in this repository the tool runs through
  `make amalgamate`.
- Its usage synopsis showed `-v` taking no argument, but the script's
  own argparser requires `choices=["yes", "no"]`, so that form fails
  with "argument -v/--verbose: expected one argument". The Makefile
  calls it as `--verbose=yes`.
- It pointed at test/source.c.json and test/include.h.json, which are
  not vendored; the configs actually used are config_json.json and
  config_json_fwd.json.

Rewrote only the Installing and Using sections to match; left the
"Here be dragons" caveats and the rest of the vendored code untouched
to avoid diverging further from upstream.

Overlaps #5615, which edits amalgamate.py, this README and CHANGES.md.

#5717 item 6

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

* Derive generate_natvis.py's ABI tag list and version from abi_macros.hpp

generate_natvis.py hard-coded abi_tags = ['_diag', '_ldvcmp', '_dp',
'_bics', '_psp', '_snul'] and required --version on the command line.
The source of truth is include/nlohmann/detail/abi_macros.hpp: the
NLOHMANN_JSON_ABI_TAG_* defines, the argument order of
NLOHMANN_JSON_ABI_TAGS_CONCAT, and NLOHMANN_JSON_VERSION_MAJOR/MINOR/
PATCH. Nothing checked that the copies stayed in sync, and they have
drifted apart before: _dp was added in #4517 but missed here until
#5544, and 3.11.3 shipped json_abi_v3_11_2 namespaces (#4340).

Parse the tag list (in NLOHMANN_JSON_ABI_TAGS_CONCAT order) and the
version from abi_macros.hpp instead of hard-coding them. Make
--version optional (falling back to the parsed version) and default
the output directory to the repository root the script lives in.

Add a "natvis" Makefile target that runs the script, and extend
check-amalgamation to regenerate nlohmann_json.natvis and fail on a
diff, the same way it already does for the amalgamated headers and
BUILD.bazel. Wire the same regeneration into check_amalgamation.yml,
using the tool copy checked out from develop (as the workflow already
does for amalgamate.py) and installing jinja2 from
tools/generate_natvis/requirements.txt. Update the tool's README to
say it must be re-run after adding an ABI tag or bumping the version.

Verified: a run against develop produces no diff (with either the
default or an explicit --version 3.12.0); adding a dummy
NLOHMANN_JSON_ABI_TAG_* without a matching #define makes the script
fail loudly instead of silently omitting the tag; xmllint --noout
passes on the regenerated file; and running the script from a
directory other than the one being checked (simulating the workflow's
separate tool checkout) against this repository root also produces no
diff.

Overlaps #5600, which added _ekmo to the same hand-written abi_tags
line and regenerated the file.

#5717 item 3

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

* Strip the leading "./" find(1) prefix from release hashes.txt entries

bc6e7db72 (#5717 item 1) switched the release target's shasum line from
naming files by hand to $$(find . -type f -not -name '*.asc' | sort),
so a newly shipped header is hashed automatically. Run from inside
release_files, that find prints paths as "./json.hpp" instead of
"json.hpp", so hashes.txt lists "./json.hpp" etc. instead of the plain
filenames it always used. shasum -c still verifies "./json.hpp" fine,
but it is a needless cosmetic regression for anyone reading the file
or matching it against release notes.

Strip the "./" prefix with sed before sorting, keeping the filenames
exactly as before while still hashing every artifact automatically.

Review fix for #5717 item 1 (PR #5735).

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

* Fix check_amalgamation.yml: pass --version to generate_natvis.py

bff45f111 (#5717 item 3) made --version optional in
tools/generate_natvis/generate_natvis.py and wired the workflow's new
"Regenerate nlohmann_json.natvis" step to call it without --version,
relying on the script deriving the version from abi_macros.hpp itself.

But NATVIS_TOOL_DIR is checked out from develop, the same way TOOL_DIR
already is for amalgamate.py, precisely so an in-flight PR's tooling
changes cannot mark themselves clean. Until this PR (or an equivalent)
merges to develop, that checkout is the old generate_natvis.py, whose
--version argument is still required=True. The new step's invocation
of "generate_natvis.py $MAIN_DIR" (no --version) then fails argparse
on this PR's own CI run with "the following arguments are required:
--version", before the check ever gets to compare output.

Extract the version from $MAIN_DIR's own abi_macros.hpp in the
workflow and always pass it as --version. That satisfies the old
script's required argument and is accepted as an explicit override by
the new one, so the step behaves the same whether NATVIS_TOOL_DIR holds
the pre- or post-merge tool, and stays correct for later PRs that bump
the version.

Verified by running the workflow step's shell logic locally against
both the pre-#5717 generate_natvis.py (checked out at 633de8e44) and
the new one: both produce the identical nlohmann_json.natvis as the
committed file.

Review fix for #5717 item 3 (PR #5735).

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

* Extend tools/macro_builder to also generate DOUBLE_PASTE and TYPE_BODY

tools/macro_builder only emitted NLOHMANN_JSON_EXPAND..PASTE64, so two
other tables that scale with the same max_args stayed hand-maintained
with nothing checking them: NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE (added by hand
in #4563 for the *_WITH_NAMES macros) and the 64-slot dispatch table of
NLOHMANN_JSON_TYPE_BODY (the #4041 zero-member/one-or-more-member
switch). Both tables pass one macro name per slot to the same
NLOHMANN_JSON_GET_MACRO dispatch as PASTE, so they can drift out of
sync with max_args exactly the way _dp did in the ABI tag list fixed
by #5544.

Extend main.cpp with build_double_paste_code() (same recursive-doubling
shape as build_paste_code(), but DOUBLE_PASTE consumes two arguments
per member, so an even slot index falls back to the next lower odd
DOUBLE_PASTE<N>) and build_type_body_table() (max_args - 1 MEMBERS
slots and one trailing EMPTY slot, 8 per line, matching how it is
written by hand today). Add a "type_body" argument that selects the
TYPE_BODY block, since it lives at a separate location in
macro_scope.hpp from the EXPAND..DOUBLE_PASTE63 block; plain invocation
is unchanged apart from covering the extended range. No longer emit
the tool's old trailing blank line, so its output is directly diffable
without post-processing.

Verified with c++ -std=c++11: running the tool (with and without
"type_body") and piping the raw output through the pinned astyle
reproduces both blocks of the current macro_scope.hpp byte for byte.
tests/src/unit-udt_macro.cpp (all NLOHMANN_DEFINE_TYPE_*/_WITH_NAMES/
zero-member variants) passes unchanged under -std=c++11 and -std=c++17
with -fsanitize=address,undefined.

Add a "macro_builder_check" Makefile target that builds main.cpp,
regenerates both blocks into a scratch directory inside the repository
(astyle's --project lookup needs the target files under the same tree
as .astylerc, unlike an external /tmp directory), and diffs them
against the corresponding ranges of macro_scope.hpp; wire it into
check-amalgamation next to the natvis check. Wire the same regeneration
into check_amalgamation.yml, splicing the (still unindented) generated
blocks back into the PR's own macro_scope.hpp before the existing
astyle/amalgamation step runs, so that step's own tree-wide astyle
pass both indents them and folds any drift into the amalgamation
patch/diff the workflow already produces.

Unlike amalgamate.py and generate_natvis.py, this step builds
tools/macro_builder/main.cpp from the pull request's own checkout
($MAIN_DIR) rather than a separate checkout of tools/ at develop: this
tool has no independent source of truth to regenerate against (its
README documents that it must reproduce macro_scope.hpp byte for
byte), so a develop-pinned copy would only reproduce the
generate_natvis.py trap fixed in a previous commit on this branch,
where a PR that teaches the tool to cover more of the file fails its
own CI until that PR merges and updates the develop copy.

Add tools/macro_builder/README.md documentation for both new tables
and the two-invocation usage, and a short pointer comment above
NLOHMANN_JSON_TYPE_BODY (the EXPAND pointer already covered the first
block; extended its wording to include DOUBLE_PASTE63).

Closes #5717 item 5 in full, completing what the documentation-only
"Document tools/macro_builder..." commit already on this branch left
open (that commit's README/pointer-comment half stands; it also covers
item 7).

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

---------

Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
2026-09-30 22:21:27 +02:00
..

macro_builder

Generates the argument-counting macros behind the NLOHMANN_DEFINE_TYPE_* and NLOHMANN_DEFINE_DERIVED_TYPE_* macros in include/nlohmann/detail/macro_scope.hpp:

  • NLOHMANN_JSON_EXPAND
  • NLOHMANN_JSON_GET_MACRO, which selects a macro by the number of its arguments (64 slots)
  • NLOHMANN_JSON_PASTE, which calls a function-like macro for each member, and its helpers NLOHMANN_JSON_PASTE2 to NLOHMANN_JSON_PASTE64
  • NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE, which the *_WITH_NAMES macros use to call a function-like macro for each (JSON name, member) pair, and its helpers NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE3 to NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE63
  • the slot table of NLOHMANN_JSON_TYPE_BODY, which dispatches NLOHMANN_DEFINE_TYPE_*(Type) (no further arguments) to the zero-member implementation and every other argument count to the one-or-more-member implementation

The number of slots (max_args in main.cpp) sets the member limit of these macros. NLOHMANN_JSON_PASTE and NLOHMANN_JSON_TYPE_BODY take the function/prefix as their first argument, so 64 slots allow 63 members; NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE additionally consumes its members two at a time (name, member), so it only defines the odd helpers up to NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE63.

Usage

From the project root:

c++ -std=c++11 tools/macro_builder/main.cpp -o macro_builder
./macro_builder
./macro_builder type_body
  1. Run ./macro_builder (no arguments). In include/nlohmann/detail/macro_scope.hpp, replace the lines from #define NLOHMANN_JSON_EXPAND( x ) x to the #define NLOHMANN_JSON_DOUBLE_PASTE63(...) line with the output, without its trailing empty line.
  2. Run ./macro_builder type_body. Replace the lines from #define NLOHMANN_JSON_TYPE_BODY(Prefix, ...) to the NLOHMANN_JSON_TYPE_BODY_SENTINEL)) line with the output.
  3. Run make amalgamate. It updates single_include/nlohmann/json.hpp and runs make pretty, which indents the continuation lines that the tool writes unindented.

With an unchanged main.cpp, these steps reproduce both blocks of macro_scope.hpp byte for byte. make macro_builder_check (also run by CI, see .github/workflows/check_amalgamation.yml) automates this: it builds main.cpp, regenerates both blocks, and fails on a diff against the checked-in header.

Maintained by hand

The tool does not generate everything that depends on the number of slots. When changing max_args, also update:

  • the documented limit of 63 members in docs/mkdocs/docs and the tests at that limit in tests/src/unit-udt_macro.cpp

All three tables pass one macro name per slot to NLOHMANN_JSON_GET_MACRO, so they need exactly as many entries as it has slots.