docs: document the implicit requirements on basic_json's template parameters

The requirements that basic_json places on its eleven template parameters
were only implied by how the library uses the resulting object_t, array_t,
string_t, etc. Consumers had to discover them by trial and error.

Add "Template Parameter Requirements" collecting them, split into what is
always required and what is only required when a particular part of the API
is instantiated. Notable findings that were previously undocumented:

- ObjectType must provide a key_compare member type (actual_object_comparator
  names object_t::key_compare in both arms of a std::conditional), and its
  third template parameter is used as a comparator, so std::unordered_map
  cannot be used without a wrapper.
- ArrayType must provide capacity() -- push_back(), emplace_back(),
  operator+=(), and operator[](size_type) call it unconditionally -- and
  needs random-access iterators, so std::deque and std::list do not work.
- StringType needs contiguous, null-terminated data(), a one-byte value_type,
  and either assignability from std::to_string or an ADL int_to_string().
- NumberFloatType must be float, double, or long double for parsing and
  serialization; the integer types must satisfy std::is_integral.
- AllocatorType must be stateless, support incomplete types, and use plain
  pointers.
- BooleanType and the number types are union members and must be trivial.

Link the new page from the basic_json overview, the types feature page, and
the individual type alias pages, and correct the container examples given for
ObjectType (std::unordered_map) and ArrayType (std::list), which do not work.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_018hxZxz8svM54c6ATEvXp5E
Signed-off-by: Niels Lohmann <mail@nlohmann.me>
This commit is contained in:
Niels Lohmann
2026-08-28 17:38:55 +00:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 35705d79d8
commit 599bb1b68c
14 changed files with 463 additions and 5 deletions
+3 -1
View File
@@ -42,7 +42,9 @@ represent a byte array in modern C++.
`value_type` must additionally be exactly one byte wide (e.g., `std::uint8_t`/`char`/`std::byte`): the binary
serializers (CBOR, MessagePack, BSON, UBJSON) read and write the container's raw bytes via
`reinterpret_cast`, which is only correct for byte-sized elements -- a container like
`#!cpp std::vector<std::intptr_t>` will not work as `BinaryType`.
`#!cpp std::vector<std::intptr_t>` will not work as `BinaryType`. The elements must be stored contiguously, and
the binary readers additionally require `resize()` and `operator[]`. See
[Template Parameter Requirements](../../features/types/template_parameters.md#binarytype) for the full list.
## Notes