nlohmann::basic_json::dump¶

string_t dump(const int indent = -1,
              const char indent_char = ' ',
              const bool ensure_ascii = false,
              const error_handler_t error_handler = error_handler_t::strict) const;

Serialization function for JSON values. The function tries to mimic Python's json.dumps() function, and currently supports its indent and ensure_ascii parameters.

Parameters¶

indent (in): If indent is nonnegative, then array elements and object members will be pretty-printed with that indent level. An indent level of 0 will only insert newlines. -1 (the default) selects the most compact representation.
indent_char (in): The character to use for indentation if indent is greater than 0. The default is (space).
ensure_ascii (in): If ensure_ascii is true, all non-ASCII characters in the output are escaped with \uXXXX sequences, and the result consists of ASCII characters only.
error_handler (in): how to react on decoding errors; there are three possible values (see error_handler_t: strict (throws and exception in case a decoding error occurs; default), replace (replace invalid UTF-8 sequences with U+FFFD), and ignore (ignore invalid UTF-8 sequences during serialization; all bytes are copied to the output unchanged)).

Return value¶

string containing the serialization of the JSON value

Exception safety¶

Strong guarantee: if an exception is thrown, there are no changes to any JSON value.

Exceptions¶

Throws type_error.316 if a string stored inside the JSON value is not UTF-8 encoded and error_handler is set to strict

Complexity¶

Linear.

Notes¶

Binary values are serialized as object containing two keys:

"bytes": an array of bytes as integers
"subtype": the subtype as integer or null if the binary has no subtype

Examples¶

Example

The following example shows the effect of different indent, indent_char, and ensure_ascii parameters to the result of the serialization.

#include <iostream>
#include <nlohmann/json.hpp>

using json = nlohmann::json;

int main()
{
    // create JSON values
    json j_object = {{"one", 1}, {"two", 2}};
    json j_array = {1, 2, 4, 8, 16};
    json j_string = "Hellö 😀!";

    // call dump()
    std::cout << "objects:" << '\n'
              << j_object.dump() << "\n\n"
              << j_object.dump(-1) << "\n\n"
              << j_object.dump(0) << "\n\n"
              << j_object.dump(4) << "\n\n"
              << j_object.dump(1, '\t') << "\n\n";

    std::cout << "arrays:" << '\n'
              << j_array.dump() << "\n\n"
              << j_array.dump(-1) << "\n\n"
              << j_array.dump(0) << "\n\n"
              << j_array.dump(4) << "\n\n"
              << j_array.dump(1, '\t') << "\n\n";

    std::cout << "strings:" << '\n'
              << j_string.dump() << '\n'
              << j_string.dump(-1, ' ', true) << '\n';

    // create JSON value with invalid UTF-8 byte sequence
    json j_invalid = "ä\xA9ü";
    try
    {
        std::cout << j_invalid.dump() << std::endl;
    }
    catch (const json::type_error& e)
    {
        std::cout << e.what() << std::endl;
    }

    std::cout << "string with replaced invalid characters: "
              << j_invalid.dump(-1, ' ', false, json::error_handler_t::replace)
              << "\nstring with ignored invalid characters: "
              << j_invalid.dump(-1, ' ', false, json::error_handler_t::ignore)
              << '\n';
}

Output:

objects:
{"one":1,"two":2}

{"one":1,"two":2}

{
"one": 1,
"two": 2
}

{
    "one": 1,
    "two": 2
}

{
    "one": 1,
    "two": 2
}

arrays:
[1,2,4,8,16]

[1,2,4,8,16]

[
1,
2,
4,
8,
16
]

[
    1,
    2,
    4,
    8,
    16
]

[
    1,
    2,
    4,
    8,
    16
]

strings:
"Hellö 😀!"
"Hell\u00f6 \ud83d\ude00!"
[json.exception.type_error.316] invalid UTF-8 byte at index 2: 0xA9
string with replaced invalid characters: "ä�ü"
string with ignored invalid characters: "äü"

Version history¶

Added in version 1.0.0.
Indentation character indent_char, option ensure_ascii and exceptions added in version 3.0.0.
Error handlers added in version 3.4.0.
Serialization of binary values added in version 3.8.0.

Last update: May 1, 2022