API Reference

Preliminaries

All declarations are in jansson.h, so it’s enough to

#include <jansson.h>

in each source file.

All constants are prefixed JSON_ and other identifiers with json_. Type names are suffixed with _t and typedef‘d so that the struct keyword need not be used.

Value Representation

The JSON specification (RFC 4627) defines the following data types: object, array, string, number, boolean, and null. JSON types are used dynamically; arrays and objects can hold any other data type, including themselves. For this reason, Jansson’s type system is also dynamic in nature. There’s one C type to represent all JSON values, and this structure knows the type of the JSON value it holds.

json_t

This data structure is used throughout the library to represent all JSON values. It always contains the type of the JSON value it holds and the value’s reference count. The rest depends on the type of the value.

Objects of json_t are always used through a pointer. There are APIs for querying the type, manipulating the reference count, and for constructing and manipulating values of different types.

Type

The type of a JSON value is queried and tested using the following functions:

enum json_type

The type of a JSON value. The following members are defined:

JSON_OBJECT

JSON_ARRAY

JSON_STRING

JSON_INTEGER

JSON_REAL

JSON_TRUE

JSON_FALSE

JSON_NULL

These correspond to JSON object, array, string, number, boolean and null. A number is represented by either a value of the type JSON_INTEGER or of the type JSON_REAL. A true boolean value is represented by a value of the type JSON_TRUE and false by a value of the type JSON_FALSE.

int json_typeof(const json_t *json)

Return the type of the JSON value (a json_type cast to int). This function is actually implemented as a macro for speed.

json_is_object(const json_t *json)

json_is_array(const json_t *json)

json_is_string(const json_t *json)

json_is_integer(const json_t *json)

json_is_real(const json_t *json)

json_is_true(const json_t *json)

json_is_false(const json_t *json)

json_is_null(const json_t *json)

These functions (actually macros) return true (non-zero) for values of the given type, and false (zero) for values of other types.

json_is_number(const json_t *json)

Returns true for values of types JSON_INTEGER and JSON_REAL, and false for other types.

json_is_boolean(const json_t *json)

Returns true for types JSON_TRUE and JSON_FALSE, and false for values of other types.

Reference Count

The reference count is used to track whether a value is still in use or not. When a value is created, it’s reference count is set to 1. If a reference to a value is kept (e.g. a value is stored somewhere for later use), its reference count is incremented, and when the value is no longer needed, the reference count is decremented. When the reference count drops to zero, there are no references left, and the value can be destroyed.

The following functions are used to manipulate the reference count.

json_t *json_incref(json_t *json)

Increment the reference count of json.

void json_decref(json_t *json)

Decrement the reference count of json. As soon as a call to json_decref() drops the reference count to zero, the value is destroyed and it can no longer be used.

Functions creating new JSON values set the reference count to 1. These functions are said to return a new reference. Other functions returning (existing) JSON values do not normally increase the reference count. These functions are said to return a borrowed reference. So, if the user will hold a reference to a value returned as a borrowed reference, he must call json_incref. As soon as the value is no longer needed, json_decref should be called to release the reference.

Normally, all functions accepting a JSON value as an argument will manage the reference, i.e. increase and decrease the reference count as needed. However, some functions steal the reference, i.e. they have the same result as if the user called json_decref() on the argument right after calling the function. These are usually convenience functions for adding new references to containers and not to worry about the reference count.

In the following sections it is clearly documented whether a function will return a new or borrowed reference or steal a reference to its argument.

True, False and Null

json_t *json_true(void)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a value of the type JSON_TRUE, or NULL on error.

json_t *json_false(void)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a value of the type JSON_FALSE, or NULL on error.

json_t *json_null(void)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a value of the type JSON_NULL, or NULL on error.

String

json_t *json_string(const char *value)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a new value of the type JSON_STRING, or NULL on error. value must be a valid UTF-8 encoded Unicode string.

const char *json_string_value(const json_t *json)

Returns the associated value of a JSON_STRING value as a null terminated UTF-8 encoded string.

Number

json_t *json_integer(int value)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a new value of the type JSON_INTEGER, or NULL on error.

int json_integer_value(const json_t *json)

Returns the associated integer value of values of the type JSON_INTEGER, or 0 for values of other types.

json_t *json_real(double value)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a new value of the type JSON_REAL, or NULL on error.

double json_real_value(const json_t *json)

Returns the associated real value of values of the type JSON_INTEGER, or 0 for values of other types.

In addition to the functions above, there’s a common query function for integers and reals:

double json_number_value(const json_t *json)

Returns the value of either JSON_INTEGER or JSON_REAL, cast to double regardless of the actual type.

Array

A JSON array is an ordered collection of other JSON values.

json_t *json_array(void)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a new value of the type JSON_ARRAY, or NULL on error. Initially, the array is empty.

unsigned int json_array_size(const json_t *array)

Returns the number of elements in array.

json_t *json_array_get(const json_t *array, unsigned int index)

Return value: Borrowed reference.

Returns the element in array at position index, or NULL if index is out of range. The valid range for index is from 0 to the return value of json_array_size() minus 1.

int json_array_set(json_t *array, unsigned int index, json_t *value)

Replaces the element in array at position index with value. Returns 0 on success, or -1 if index is out of range. The valid range for index is from 0 to the return value of json_array_size() minus 1.

int json_array_append(json_t *array, json_t *value)

Appends value to the end of array, growing the size of array by 1. Returns 0 on success and -1 on error.

Object

A JSON object is a dictionary of key-value pairs, where the key is a Unicode string and the value is any JSON value.

json_t *json_object(void)

Return value: New reference.

Returns a new value of the type JSON_OBJECT, or NULL on error. Initially, the object is empty.

json_t *json_object_get(const json_t *object, const char *key)

Return value: Borrowed reference.

Get a value corresponding to key from object. Returns NULL if key is not found and on error.

int json_object_set(json_t *object, const char *key, json_t *value)

Set the value of key to value in object. key must be a valid terminated UTF-8 encoded Unicode string. If there already is a value for key, it is replaced by the new value. Returns 0 on success and -1 on error.

int json_object_del(json_t *object, const char *key)

Delete key from object if it exists. Returns 0 on success, or -1 if key was not found.

The following functions implement an iteration protocol for objects:

void *json_object_iter(json_t *object)

Returns an opaque iterator which can be used to iterate over all key-value pairs in object, or NULL if object is empty.

void *json_object_iter_next(json_t *object, void *iter)

Returns an iterator pointing to the next key-value pair in object after iter, or NULL if the whole object has been iterated through.

const char *json_object_iter_key(void *iter)

Extract the associated key from iter.

json_t *json_object_iter_value(void *iter)

Return value: Borrowed reference.

Extract the associated value from iter.

Encoding

This sections describes the functions that can be used to encode values to JSON. Only objects and arrays can be encoded, since they are the only valid “root” values of a JSON text.

Each function takes a flags parameter that controls some aspects of how the data is encoded. Its default value is 0. The following macros can be ORed together to obtain flags.

JSON_INDENT(n)

Pretty-print the result, indenting arrays and objects by n spaces. The valid range for n is between 0 and 255, other values result in an undefined output. If JSON_INDENT is not used or n is 0, no pretty-printing is done and the result is a compact representation.

The following functions perform the actual JSON encoding. The result is in UTF-8.

char *json_dumps(const json_t *root, uint32_t flags)

Returns the JSON representation of root as a string, or NULL on error. flags is described above. The return value must be freed by the caller using free().

int json_dumpf(const json_t *root, FILE *output, uint32_t flags)

Write the JSON representation of root to the stream output. flags is described above. Returns 0 on success and -1 on error.

int json_dump_file(const json_t *json, const char *path, uint32_t flags)

Write the JSON representation of root to the file path. If path already exists, it is overwritten. flags is described above. Returns 0 on success and -1 on error.

Decoding

This sections describes the functions that can be used to decode JSON text to the Jansson representation of JSON data. The JSON specification requires that a JSON text is either a serialized array or object, and this requirement is also enforced with the following functions.

The only supported character encoding is UTF-8 (which ASCII is a subset of).

json_error_t

This data structure is used to return information on decoding errors from the decoding functions. Its definition is repeated here:

#define JSON_ERROR_TEXT_LENGTH  160

typedef struct {
    char text[JSON_ERROR_TEXT_LENGTH];
    int line;
} json_error_t;

line is the line number on which the error occurred, or -1 if this information is not available. text contains the error message (in UTF-8), or an empty string if a message is not available.

The normal usef of json_error_t is to allocate it normally on the stack, and pass a pointer to a decoding function. Example:

int main() {
    json_t *json;
    json_error_t error;

    json = json_load_file("/path/to/file.json", &error);
    if(!json) {
        /* the error variable contains error information */
    }
    ...
}

Also note that if the decoding succeeded (json != NULL in the above example), the contents of error are unspecified.

All decoding functions also accept NULL as the json_error_t pointer, in which case no error information is returned to the caller.

The following functions perform the actual JSON decoding.

json_t *json_loads(const char *input, json_error_t *error)

Return value: New reference.

Decodes the JSON string input and returns the array or object it contains, or NULL on error, in which case error is filled with information about the error. See above for discussion on the error parameter.

json_t *json_loadf(FILE *input, json_error_t *error)

Return value: New reference.

Decodes the JSON text in stream input and returns the array or object it contains, or NULL on error, in which case error is filled with information about the error. See above for discussion on the error parameter.

json_t *json_load_file(const char *path, json_error_t *error)

Return value: New reference.

Decodes the JSON text in file path and returns the array or object it contains, or NULL on error, in which case error is filled with information about the error. See above for discussion on the error parameter.