Why does Boost property tree write_json save everything as string? Is it possible to change that?

Ok, I've solved it like this, (of course it won't suite for everybody, as it is a bit of a hack, that need further work).

---

I've wrote my own write_json function (simply copied the files, json_parser.hpp and json_parser_write.hpp to my project) and modified the following lines in json_parser_write.hpp:

1. commented line 37 - escaping the quote '"'
2. changed line 76 - so that it doesn't add quotes anymore: stream << Ch('"') << data << Ch('"'); ==> stream << data;

---

Then values will be saved properly except for strings, so I wrote custom translator for it:

template <typename T>
struct my_id_translator
{
    typedef T internal_type;
    typedef T external_type;

    boost::optional<T> get_value(const T &v) { return  v.substr(1, v.size() - 2) ; }
    boost::optional<T> put_value(const T &v) { return '"' + v +'"'; }
};

and simply saved string using:

elem2.put<std::string>("key2", "asdf", my_id_translator<std::string>());

complete program:

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <sstream>

#include <boost/property_tree/ptree.hpp>

#include "property_tree/json_parser.hpp" // copied the headers

template <typename T>

struct my_id_translator
{
    typedef T internal_type;
    typedef T external_type;

    boost::optional<T> get_value(const T &v) { return  v.substr(1, v.size() - 2) ; }
    boost::optional<T> put_value(const T &v) { return '"' + v +'"'; }
};

int main(int, char *[])
{
    using namespace std;
    using boost::property_tree::ptree;
    using boost::property_tree::basic_ptree;
    try
    {
        ptree root, arr,elem2;
        basic_ptree<std::string, std::string> elem1;
        elem1.put<int>("int", 10 );
        elem1.put<bool>("bool", true);
        elem2.put<double>("double", 2.2);
        elem2.put<std::string>("string", "some string", my_id_translator<std::string>());

        arr.push_back( std::make_pair("", elem1) );
        arr.push_back( std::make_pair("", elem2) );
        root.put_child("path1.path2", arr);

        std::stringstream ss;
        write_json(ss, root);
        std::string my_string_to_send_somewhere_else = ss.str();

        cout << my_string_to_send_somewhere_else << endl;

    }
    catch (std::exception & e)
    {
        cout << e.what();
    }
    return 0;
}

result :)

{
    "path1":
    {
        "path2":
        [
            {
                "int": 10,
                "bool": true
            },
            {
                "double": 2.2,
                "string": "some string"
            }
        ]
    }
}

Boost confirms its implementation has no 100% conformance to JSON standard. Check the following link to see their explanation: Making a ptree variant that preserves JSON types is a future plan, but far off.!

The simplest and cleanest solution that i could come up with was generating the JSON with placeholders and in the end string replacing with the actual value ditching the extra quotes.

static string buildGetOrdersCommand() {
    ptree root;
    ptree element;
    element.put<string>("pendingOnly", ":pendingOnly");
    element.put<string>("someIntValue", ":someIntValue");

    root.put("command", "getOrders");
    root.put_child("arguments", element);

    std::ostringstream buf;
    write_json(buf, root, false);
    buf << std::endl;

    string json = buf.str();
    replace(json, ":pendingOnly", "true");
    replace(json, ":someIntValue", std::to_string(15));

    return json;
}

static void replace(string& json, const string& placeholder, const string& value) {
    boost::replace_all<string>(json, "\"" + placeholder + "\"", value);
}

And the result is

{"command":"getOrders","arguments":{"pendingOnly":true,"someIntValue":15}}