Pure Lua json library.

json.lua

--[[ json.lua

A compact pure-Lua JSON library.
The main functions are: json.stringify, json.parse.

## json.stringify:

This expects the following to be true of any tables being encoded:
 * They only have string or number keys. Number keys must be represented as
   strings in json; this is part of the json spec.
 * They are not recursive. Such a structure cannot be specified in json.

A Lua table is considered to be an array if and only if its set of keys is a
consecutive sequence of positive integers starting at 1. Arrays are encoded like
so: `[2, 3, false, "hi"]`. Any other type of Lua table is encoded as a json
object, encoded like so: `{"key1": 2, "key2": false}`.

Because the Lua nil value cannot be a key, and as a table value is considerd
equivalent to a missing key, there is no way to express the json "null" value in
a Lua table. The only way this will output "null" is if your entire input obj is
nil itself.

An empty Lua table, {}, could be considered either a json object or array -
it's an ambiguous edge case. We choose to treat this as an object as it is the
more general type.

To be clear, none of the above considerations is a limitation of this code.
Rather, it is what we get when we completely observe the json specification for
as arbitrary a Lua object as json is capable of expressing.

## json.parse:

This function parses json, with the exception that it does not pay attention to
\u-escaped unicode code points in strings.

It is difficult for Lua to return null as a value. In order to prevent the loss
of keys with a null value in a json string, this function uses the one-off
table value json.null (which is just an empty table) to indicate null values.
This way you can check if a value is null with the conditional
`val == json.null`.

If you have control over the data and are using Lua, I would recommend just
avoiding null values in your data to begin with.

--]]


local json = {}


-- Internal functions.

local function kind_of(obj)
  if type(obj) ~= 'table' then return type(obj) end
  local i = 1
  for _ in pairs(obj) do
    if obj[i] ~= nil then i = i + 1 else return 'table' end
  end
  if i == 1 then return 'table' else return 'array' end
end

local function escape_str(s)
  local in_char  = {'\\', '"', '/', '\b', '\f', '\n', '\r', '\t'}
  local out_char = {'\\', '"', '/',  'b',  'f',  'n',  'r',  't'}
  for i, c in ipairs(in_char) do
    s = s:gsub(c, '\\' .. out_char[i])
  end
  return s
end

-- Returns pos, did_find; there are two cases:
-- 1. Delimiter found: pos = pos after leading space + delim; did_find = true.
-- 2. Delimiter not found: pos = pos after leading space;     did_find = false.
-- This throws an error if err_if_missing is true and the delim is not found.
local function skip_delim(str, pos, delim, err_if_missing)
  pos = pos + #str:match('^%s*', pos)
  if str:sub(pos, pos) ~= delim then
    if err_if_missing then
      error('Expected ' .. delim .. ' near position ' .. pos)
    end
    return pos, false
  end
  return pos + 1, true
end

-- Expects the given pos to be the first character after the opening quote.
-- Returns val, pos; the returned pos is after the closing quote character.
local function parse_str_val(str, pos, val)
  val = val or ''
  local early_end_error = 'End of input found while parsing string.'
  if pos > #str then error(early_end_error) end
  local c = str:sub(pos, pos)
  if c == '"'  then return val, pos + 1 end
  if c ~= '\\' then return parse_str_val(str, pos + 1, val .. c) end
  -- We must have a \ character.
  local esc_map = {b = '\b', f = '\f', n = '\n', r = '\r', t = '\t'}
  local nextc = str:sub(pos + 1, pos + 1)
  if not nextc then error(early_end_error) end
  return parse_str_val(str, pos + 2, val .. (esc_map[nextc] or nextc))
end

-- Returns val, pos; the returned pos is after the number's final character.
local function parse_num_val(str, pos)
  local num_str = str:match('^-?%d+%.?%d*[eE]?[+-]?%d*', pos)
  local val = tonumber(num_str)
  if not val then error('Error parsing number at position ' .. pos .. '.') end
  return val, pos + #num_str
end


-- Public values and functions.

function json.stringify(obj, as_key)
  local s = {}  -- We'll build the string as an array of strings to be concatenated.
  local kind = kind_of(obj)  -- This is 'array' if it's an array or type(obj) otherwise.
  if kind == 'array' then
    if as_key then error('Can\'t encode array as key.') end
    s[#s + 1] = '['
    for i, val in ipairs(obj) do
      if i > 1 then s[#s + 1] = ', ' end
      s[#s + 1] = json.stringify(val)
    end
    s[#s + 1] = ']'
  elseif kind == 'table' then
    if as_key then error('Can\'t encode table as key.') end
    s[#s + 1] = '{'
    for k, v in pairs(obj) do
      if #s > 1 then s[#s + 1] = ', ' end
      s[#s + 1] = json.stringify(k, true)
      s[#s + 1] = ':'
      s[#s + 1] = json.stringify(v)
    end
    s[#s + 1] = '}'
  elseif kind == 'string' then
    return '"' .. escape_str(obj) .. '"'
  elseif kind == 'number' then
    if as_key then return '"' .. tostring(obj) .. '"' end
    return tostring(obj)
  elseif kind == 'boolean' then
    return tostring(obj)
  elseif kind == 'nil' then
    return 'null'
  else
    error('Unjsonifiable type: ' .. kind .. '.')
  end
  return table.concat(s)
end

json.null = {}  -- This is a one-off table to represent the null value.

function json.parse(str, pos, end_delim)
  pos = pos or 1
  if pos > #str then error('Reached unexpected end of input.') end
  local pos = pos + #str:match('^%s*', pos)  -- Skip whitespace.
  local first = str:sub(pos, pos)
  if first == '{' then  -- Parse an object.
    local obj, key, delim_found = {}, true, true
    pos = pos + 1
    while true do
      key, pos = json.parse(str, pos, '}')
      if key == nil then return obj, pos end
      if not delim_found then error('Comma missing between object items.') end
      pos = skip_delim(str, pos, ':', true)  -- true -> error if missing.
      obj[key], pos = json.parse(str, pos)
      pos, delim_found = skip_delim(str, pos, ',')
    end
  elseif first == '[' then  -- Parse an array.
    local arr, val, delim_found = {}, true, true
    pos = pos + 1
    while true do
      val, pos = json.parse(str, pos, ']')
      if val == nil then return arr, pos end
      if not delim_found then error('Comma missing between array items.') end
      arr[#arr + 1] = val
      pos, delim_found = skip_delim(str, pos, ',')
    end
  elseif first == '"' then  -- Parse a string.
    return parse_str_val(str, pos + 1)
  elseif first == '-' or first:match('%d') then  -- Parse a number.
    return parse_num_val(str, pos)
  elseif first == end_delim then  -- End of an object or array.
    return nil, pos + 1
  else  -- Parse true, false, or null.
    local literals = {['true'] = true, ['false'] = false, ['null'] = json.null}
    for lit_str, lit_val in pairs(literals) do
      local lit_end = pos + #lit_str - 1
      if str:sub(pos, lit_end) == lit_str then return lit_val, lit_end + 1 end
    end
    local pos_info_str = 'position ' .. pos .. ': ' .. str:sub(pos, pos + 10)
    error('Invalid json syntax starting at ' .. pos_info_str)
  end
end

return json

@vivision1 : When you import a module in lua, you want to use a statement like this:

local somemodule = require "somemodule"

So, in your case, you want to start with:

local json = require "json"

The error you see is because your runtime of lua never had the variable json defined. Using the above line will define it for you. (This is different from something like Python where just import something will define the name something for you; in lua you must assign the return value of require() to a variable so you can use it.)

@tylerneylon I just remove the local local json = {} to json = {} on your code before I saw your message and it worked
just: require "json" on the caller

Thanks @tylerneylon and @bikeNerd2020 to share this knowledge.
You saved a few hours of my work day!
Excellent!

Thanks a lot for creating this library.

One question on escape_str(). What is the rationale to escape '/'? '/' is not a valid escape character in Lua. After escaping, http://stderr -> http:\/\/stderr, which IMHO is a bit confusing.

Much appreciated if you could clarify this for me.

Hi @shuaich , it's a good question. It turns out that you could edit escape_str() so that it doesn't escape forward slashes, and everything will work fine.

Why is the current code the way it is? Because when I wrote it I was looking at the JSON spec, which gives a short list of characters that can be escaped: https://www.json.org/json-en.html (scroll down to the "string" section)

After you asked your question, I myself was wondering why anyone would need to escape forward slashes. It turns out that HTML disallows strings inside a <script> tag from containing the character sequence </, and you can avoid those sequences by escaping forward slashes. Hence JSON supports that, hence my code above supports it. But, again, if you leave the forward slashes un-escaped, it is still valid JSON and you might like that way better! :)

For reference, here's the answer I found on stackoverflow about JSON escaping forward slashes:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/1580682/3561

Thanks Tyler for your responsive and detailed answer. That makes total sense. 👍