Parsing Untrusted Input¶

This page is for applications that parse JSON -- or one of the supported binary formats (BJData, BON8, BSON, CBOR, MessagePack, UBJSON) -- from a source they do not fully control, such as a network connection, an uploaded file, or another process. It summarizes what the library already does for such input and what remains the caller's responsibility, linking to the pages that cover each aspect in detail rather than repeating them.

For the project's threat model and the countermeasures behind these behaviors, see the assurance case; to report a vulnerability, see the security policy.

Errors without exceptions¶

By default, parse() throws a parse_error (for instance parse_error.101 for a syntax error) when the input is not valid. If your environment cannot use exceptions for untrusted input, the library offers several alternatives; see Parsing and exceptions for the full comparison:

Pass false as the third argument to parse() to get a discarded value (checked with is_discarded()) instead of a thrown exception, with no diagnostic information.
Use accept() to only check whether the input is valid JSON, without building a value.
Implement the SAX interface and override parse_error() to react to an error yourself, with the byte position and the exception that would otherwise have been thrown; see the example that overrides it to print instead of throw.

If exceptions are unavailable entirely (-fno-exceptions, or JSON_NOEXCEPTION defined), every throw in the library becomes a call to std::abort() -- there is no way to recover from a parse error of untrusted input in that configuration; see Switch off exceptions for the details and for overriding this with JSON_THROW_USER.

Nesting depth¶

The JSON parser and the binary readers are iterative: they keep the containers they are currently inside of on a heap-allocated stack instead of calling themselves once per nesting level, so the native call stack does not grow with the nesting depth of the input. A deeply nested document is therefore bounded by available memory, not by the call stack, however deeply it is nested.

No built-in depth limit while parsing

Neither the parser nor the binary readers impose a limit on how deep the input may nest. An attacker can still exhaust memory (though not the call stack) with a sufficiently deep document. If you need to reject over-deep untrusted input outright, track the depth yourself, either with a parser callback for the JSON parser, or by counting start_object/start_array and end_object/end_array calls in a SAX handler (for the JSON parser or a binary format alike) and throwing once your limit is exceeded.

Once a value has been parsed, operations that walk it recursively -- serializing it with dump, hashing it, copying it, comparing two values with ==, <, or (in C++20) <=>, merging with update, and applying a merge_patch -- descend at most 128 levels on the call stack and continue below that with an explicit stack instead, so none of them can exhaust the stack either, however deeply the value is nested. Destroying a value (its destructor) never recurses at all, regardless of nesting depth, for the same reason.

Not every operation is bounded yet

diff, flatten, and the binary writers (to_cbor, to_msgpack, ...) still recurse once per nesting level; this is called out as work in progress in the assurance case. A value deep enough to matter for these operations would typically first have to survive parsing without hitting a self-imposed depth limit, as described above.

Input size¶

The library does not limit the overall size of a JSON text; a value nested or wide enough will use memory proportional to the input. If you parse untrusted input of unbounded size, check the size of the file or stream yourself before -- or while -- handing it to parse().

For the binary formats, an announced size is never trusted outright:

Reading a string or binary value copies the input in bounded 4096-byte chunks and grows the result as bytes are actually consumed, rather than allocating the announced length up front -- a truncated input runs out of bytes (reported as a parse error) instead of triggering an oversized allocation.
When an array announces its number of elements and the array container supports reserve() (as std::vector, the default, does), the library reserves storage for at most 16384 of them upfront, regardless of how large the announced count is; further elements still grow the container normally as they are read.
An announced array or object size that exceeds what the target container could ever hold (its max_size()) is rejected immediately as out_of_range.408, without attempting to allocate anything.

Strings¶

Invalid UTF-8 is rejected while parsing, not just while serializing:

In JSON text, an ill-formed UTF-8 byte in a string is a parse_error.101 ("invalid string: ill-formed UTF-8 byte").
In a binary format, a string that is not valid UTF-8 is a parse_error.113.

A '\0' (NUL) byte inside a quoted JSON string is always rejected (it must be escaped as \u0000). A NUL byte outside of a string is different: by default it is silently treated as the end of the input, so trailing bytes after it -- including further, otherwise well-formed JSON -- are silently ignored rather than rejected. Since untrusted input that happens to embed a NUL is a way to make part of it disappear without a parse error, see the FAQ entry and consider defining JSON_STRICT_NUL_HANDLING to 1 to reject a NUL byte like any other unexpected byte instead.

Parsing is not the only place invalid UTF-8 matters: a string that reached a json value some other way (for example, constructed by application code, or, before JSON_STRICT_NUL_HANDLING existed, read from a binary format that does not validate strings) still has to round-trip back to JSON text. By default, dump() throws type_error.316 if the string is not valid UTF-8; passing error_handler_t::replace or error_handler_t::ignore avoids the exception instead of crashing an application that forgot to catch it. See Handling invalid UTF-8 for the options and an example.

Duplicate object keys¶

The JSON specification leaves the handling of repeated keys in an object up to the implementation, and this library does too: as described in object_t, it is unspecified which of the values for a repeated key ends up in the parsed object. If your application must reject duplicate keys instead of silently resolving them one way or another, see the parser callback recipe for rejecting duplicate keys.

Numbers¶

A number whose value cannot be represented -- for instance 1E1000, which overflows double -- is rejected while parsing as out_of_range.406 rather than silently becoming infinity. An integer that is syntactically valid but does not fit the 64-bit integer types is not rejected; it is instead stored as a double, which may lose precision for very large values. See number limits for the exact ranges and an example.

Comments and trailing commas¶

Both comments and trailing commas are rejected by default, matching the JSON specification; they must be explicitly enabled per call with the ignore_comments and ignore_trailing_commas parameters of parse() or accept(). Do not enable either for input whose conformance you cannot otherwise control, since interoperability with strictly conforming JSON consumers is exactly what the default rejects.

Checklist¶

Wrap parsing in a try/catch block, or use allow_exceptions=false/accept() if your environment cannot use exceptions; never let JSON_NOEXCEPTION's abort() be the first time you think about error handling.
If the input's nesting depth matters to you, enforce your own limit with a parser callback or a SAX handler; the library bounds the call stack but not memory use.
Bound the size of the input itself before parsing, independent of the library's own bounded allocations for binary format lengths.
Decide up front how you want a string with invalid UTF-8 -- from any source, not only parsing -- to be serialized (strict, replace, or ignore), rather than discovering it from an uncaught type_error.316.
If a stray NUL byte silently truncating trailing input is a problem for your input format, define JSON_STRICT_NUL_HANDLING.
Decide whether duplicate object keys should be an error for your application, and add a callback if so.
Do not enable ignore_comments or ignore_trailing_commas for input that must be strictly conforming JSON.

For the broader design rationale and how it is tested (fuzzing, sanitizers, static analysis), see the assurance case and quality assurance. To report a security issue in the library itself, follow the security policy.