Reading json files in C++

1. Yes you can create a nested data structure people which can be indexed by Anna and Ben. However, you can’t index it directly by age and profession (I will get to this part in the code).

2. The data type of people is of type Json::Value (which is defined in jsoncpp). You are right, it is similar to the nested map, but Value is a data structure which is defined such that multiple types can be stored and accessed. It is similar to a map with a string as the key and Json::Value as the value. It could also be a map between an unsigned int as key and Json::Value as the value (In case of json arrays).

Here’s the code:

//if include <json/value.h> line fails (latest kernels), try also:
//  #include <jsoncpp/json/json.h>
#include <json/value.h>
#include <fstream>

std::ifstream people_file("people.json", std::ifstream::binary);
Json::Value people;
people_file >> people;

cout<<people; //This will print the entire json object.

//The following lines will let you access the indexed objects.
cout<<people["Anna"]; //Prints the value for "Anna"
cout<<people["ben"]; //Prints the value for "Ben"
cout<<people["Anna"]["profession"]; //Prints the value corresponding to "profession" in the json for "Anna"

cout<<people["profession"]; //NULL! There is no element with key "profession". Hence a new empty element will be created.

As you can see, you can index the json object only based on the hierarchy of the input data.