How to decode an std::string formated JSON into a Boost Property tree?

Question

Suppose that I'm receiving a JSON formated string from network and want to decode it in a Boost Property tree. What the best way of doing that?

Answer 1

For creating a easy example, lets assume we have a string in the code to represent the string that you are going to receive from the network with the following content:

{
    "Test": "string",
    "Test2":
    {
        "inner0": "string2",
        "inner1": "string3",
        "inner2": "1234"
    }
}

So the code for interpreting that as a string is the following:

#include <boost/property_tree/json_parser.hpp>
#include <iostream>
#include <sstream>

int main()
{
    std::stringstream buffer("{ \"Test\": \"string\", \"Test2\": { \"inner0\": \"string2\", \"inner1\": \"string3\", \"inner2\": \"1234\" } }");
    std::cout << buffer.str() << std::endl;

    boost::property_tree::ptree pt;
    boost::property_tree::json_parser::read_json(buffer, pt);

    std::string test2_inner0_str = pt.get<std::string>("Test2.inner0");
    int test2_inner2_value = pt.get<int>("Test2.inner2");

    std::cout << test2_inner0_str << std::endl;
    std::cout << test2_inner2_value << std::endl;
}

Prints:

Live On Coliru

{ "Test": "string", "Test2": { "inner0": "string2", "inner1": "string3", "inner2": "1234" } }
string2
1234