How to create/read/write JSON files in Qt5

Qt5 has a new JSON parser and I want to use it. The problem is that it isn't too clear about what the functions do in layman's terms and how to write code with it. That or I could be reading it wrong.

I want to know the code on creating a JSON file in Qt5 and what "encapsulates" mean.

Example: Read json from file

/* test.json */
{
   "appDesc": {
      "description": "SomeDescription",
      "message": "SomeMessage"
   },
   "appName": {
      "description": "Home",
      "message": "Welcome",
      "imp":["awesome","best","good"]
   }
}


void readJson()
   {
      QString val;
      QFile file;
      file.setFileName("test.json");
      file.open(QIODevice::ReadOnly | QIODevice::Text);
      val = file.readAll();
      file.close();
      qWarning() << val;
      QJsonDocument d = QJsonDocument::fromJson(val.toUtf8());
      QJsonObject sett2 = d.object();
      QJsonValue value = sett2.value(QString("appName"));
      qWarning() << value;
      QJsonObject item = value.toObject();
      qWarning() << tr("QJsonObject of description: ") << item;

      /* in case of string value get value and convert into string*/
      qWarning() << tr("QJsonObject[appName] of description: ") << item["description"];
      QJsonValue subobj = item["description"];
      qWarning() << subobj.toString();

      /* in case of array get array and convert into string*/
      qWarning() << tr("QJsonObject[appName] of value: ") << item["imp"];
      QJsonArray test = item["imp"].toArray();
      qWarning() << test[1].toString();
   }

OUTPUT

QJsonValue(object, QJsonObject({"description": "Home","imp": ["awesome","best","good"],"message": "YouTube"}) ) 
"QJsonObject of description: " QJsonObject({"description": "Home","imp": ["awesome","best","good"],"message": "YouTube"}) 
"QJsonObject[appName] of description: " QJsonValue(string, "Home") 
"Home" 
"QJsonObject[appName] of value: " QJsonValue(array, QJsonArray(["awesome","best","good"]) ) 
"best" 

Example: Read json from string

Assign json to string as below and use the readJson() function shown before:

val =   
'  {
       "appDesc": {
          "description": "SomeDescription",
          "message": "SomeMessage"
       },
       "appName": {
          "description": "Home",
          "message": "Welcome",
          "imp":["awesome","best","good"]
       }
    }';

OUTPUT

QJsonValue(object, QJsonObject({"description": "Home","imp": ["awesome","best","good"],"message": "YouTube"}) ) 
"QJsonObject of description: " QJsonObject({"description": "Home","imp": ["awesome","best","good"],"message": "YouTube"}) 
"QJsonObject[appName] of description: " QJsonValue(string, "Home") 
"Home" 
"QJsonObject[appName] of value: " QJsonValue(array, QJsonArray(["awesome","best","good"]) ) 
"best" 

Sadly, many JSON C++ libraries have APIs that are non trivial to use, while JSON was intended to be easy to use.

So I tried jsoncpp from the gSOAP tools on the JSON doc shown in one of the answers above and this is the code generated with jsoncpp to construct a JSON object in C++ which is then written in JSON format to std::cout:

value x(ctx);
x["appDesc"]["description"] = "SomeDescription";
x["appDesc"]["message"] = "SomeMessage";
x["appName"]["description"] = "Home";
x["appName"]["message"] = "Welcome";
x["appName"]["imp"][0] = "awesome";
x["appName"]["imp"][1] = "best";
x["appName"]["imp"][2] = "good";
std::cout << x << std::endl;

and this is the code generated by jsoncpp to parse JSON from std::cin and extract its values (replace USE_VAL as needed):

value x(ctx);
std::cin >> x;
if (x.soap->error)
  exit(EXIT_FAILURE); // error parsing JSON
#define USE_VAL(path, val) std::cout << path << " = " << val << std::endl
if (x.has("appDesc"))
{
  if (x["appDesc"].has("description"))
    USE_VAL("$.appDesc.description", x["appDesc"]["description"]);
  if (x["appDesc"].has("message"))
    USE_VAL("$.appDesc.message", x["appDesc"]["message"]);
}
if (x.has("appName"))
{
  if (x["appName"].has("description"))
    USE_VAL("$.appName.description", x["appName"]["description"]);
  if (x["appName"].has("message"))
    USE_VAL("$.appName.message", x["appName"]["message"]);
  if (x["appName"].has("imp"))
  {
    for (int i2 = 0; i2 < x["appName"]["imp"].size(); i2++)
      USE_VAL("$.appName.imp[]", x["appName"]["imp"][i2]);
  }
}

This code uses the JSON C++ API of gSOAP 2.8.28. I don't expect people to change libraries, but I think this comparison helps to put JSON C++ libraries in perspective.