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json/docs/mkdocs/docs/features/binary_formats/index.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

3.0 KiB

Binary Formats

Though JSON is a ubiquitous data format, it is not a very compact format suitable for data exchange, for instance, over a network. Hence, the library supports

to efficiently encode JSON values to byte vectors and to decode such vectors.

Comparison

Completeness

Format Serialization Deserialization
BJData complete complete
BON8 incomplete: no unsigned integers above int64 complete
BSON incomplete: top-level value must be an object incomplete, but all JSON types are supported
CBOR complete incomplete, but all JSON types are supported
MessagePack complete complete
UBJSON complete complete

Binary values

Format Binary values Binary subtypes
BJData not supported not supported
BON8 not supported not supported
BSON supported supported
CBOR supported supported
MessagePack supported supported
UBJSON not supported not supported

See binary values for more information.

Sizes

Format canada.json twitter.json citm_catalog.json jeopardy.json
BJData 53.2 % 91.1 % 78.1 % 96.6 %
BJData (size) 58.6 % 92.1 % 86.7 % 97.4 %
BJData (size+type) 58.6 % 92.1 % 86.5 % 97.4 %
BON8 50.5 % 83.8 % 63.5 % 87.5 %
BSON 85.8 % 95.2 % 95.8 % 106.7 %
CBOR 50.5 % 86.3 % 68.4 % 88.0 %
MessagePack 50.5 % 86.0 % 68.5 % 87.9 %
UBJSON 53.2 % 91.3 % 78.2 % 96.6 %
UBJSON (size) 58.6 % 92.3 % 86.8 % 97.4 %
UBJSON (size+type) 55.9 % 92.3 % 85.0 % 95.0 %

Sizes compared to minified JSON value.