Creating JSON arrays in Boost using Property Trees

Simple Array:

#include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>
using boost::property_tree::ptree;

ptree pt;
ptree children;
ptree child1, child2, child3;

child1.put("", 1);
child2.put("", 2);
child3.put("", 3);

children.push_back(std::make_pair("", child1));
children.push_back(std::make_pair("", child2));
children.push_back(std::make_pair("", child3));

pt.add_child("MyArray", children);

write_json("test1.json", pt);

results in:

{
    "MyArray":
    [
        "1",
        "2",
        "3"
    ]
}

Array over Objects:

ptree pt;
ptree children;
ptree child1, child2, child3;


child1.put("childkeyA", 1);
child1.put("childkeyB", 2);

child2.put("childkeyA", 3);
child2.put("childkeyB", 4);

child3.put("childkeyA", 5);
child3.put("childkeyB", 6);

children.push_back(std::make_pair("", child1));
children.push_back(std::make_pair("", child2));
children.push_back(std::make_pair("", child3));

pt.put("testkey", "testvalue");
pt.add_child("MyArray", children);

write_json("test2.json", pt);

results in:

{
    "testkey": "testvalue",
    "MyArray":
    [
        {
            "childkeyA": "1",
            "childkeyB": "2"
        },
        {
            "childkeyA": "3",
            "childkeyB": "4"
        },
        {
            "childkeyA": "5",
            "childkeyB": "6"
        }
    ]
}

hope this helps

What you need to do is this piece of fun. This is from memory, but something like this works for me.

boost::property_tree::ptree root;
boost::property_tree::ptree child1;
boost::property_tree::ptree child2;

// .. fill in children here with what you want
// ...

ptree.push_back( std::make_pair("", child1 ) );
ptree.push_back( std::make_pair("", child2 ) );

But watch out there's several bugs in the json parsing and writing. Several of which I've submitted bug reports for - with no response :(

EDIT: to address concern about it serializing incorrectly as {"":"","":""}

This only happens when the array is the root element. The boost ptree writer treats all root elements as objects - never arrays or values. This is caused by the following line in boost/propert_tree/detail/json_parser_writer.hpp

else if (indent > 0 && pt.count(Str()) == pt.size())

Getting rid of the "indent > 0 &&" will allow it to write arrays correctly.

If you don't like how much space is produced you can use the patch I've provided here