**Note:** Encoding any value may be useful in some scenarios, but
it's generally discouraged as it violates strict compatiblity with
:rfc:`4627`. If you use this flag, don't expect interoperatibility
- with other JSON systems. Even Jansson itself doesn't have any means
- to decode JSON texts whose root value is not object or array.
+ with other JSON systems.
.. versionadded:: 2.1
specification requires that a JSON text is either a serialized array
or object, and this requirement is also enforced with the following
functions. In other words, the top level value in the JSON text being
-decoded must be either array or object.
+decoded must be either array or object. To decode any JSON value, use
+the ``JSON_DECODE_ANY`` flag (see below).
See :ref:`rfc-conformance` for a discussion on Jansson's conformance
to the JSON specification. It explains many design decisions that
.. versionadded:: 2.1
``JSON_DECODE_ANY``
- By default, the decoder expects that its whole input constitutes a
- valid JSON array or a valid JSON object. With this flag enabled,
- the decoder accepts any valid JSON value.
- This can be incompatible with the JSON_DISABLE_EOF_CHECK flag,
- because the decoder may read up to 4 extra bytes from the input
- (one utf-8 encoded character).
+ By default, the decoder expects an array or object as the input.
+ With this flag enabled, the decoder accepts any valid JSON value.
+
+ **Note:** Decoding any value may be useful in some scenarios, but
+ it's generally discouraged as it violates strict compatiblity with
+ :rfc:`4627`. If you use this flag, don't expect interoperatibility
+ with other JSON systems.
.. versionadded:: 2.3
multiple times, if the input consists of consecutive JSON texts,
possibly separated by whitespace.
+ If both ``JSON_DISABLE_EOF_CHECK`` and ``JSON_DECODE_ANY`` flags
+ are used, the decoder may read one extra UTF-8 code unit (up to 4
+ bytes of input). For example, decoding ``4true`` correctly decodes
+ the integer 4, but leaves the file position pointing at ``r``
+ instead of ``t``. For this reason, if reading multiple consecutive
+ values that are not arrays and objects, they should be separated by
+ at least one whitespace character.
+
.. function:: json_t *json_load_file(const char *path, size_t flags, json_error_t *error)
.. refcounting:: new