Almost two years ago, I was using Boost’s PropertyTree library as a JSON serializer. It had a bug that included extra whitespace in the output, when disabling the “pretty” option. I submitted a patch.

I implemented it locally, to reduce bandwidth for a game title I was working on. The bandwidth savings add up, given the frequency of data refresh. It’s a simple fix.

diff -dur boost.old/property_tree/detail/json_parser_write.hpp boost.new/property_tree/detail/json_parser_write.hpp
--- boost.old/property_tree/detail/json_parser_write.hpp	2012-07-26 19:42:10.000000000 -0700
+++ boost.new/property_tree/detail/json_parser_write.hpp	2012-07-26 19:43:34.000000000 -0700
@@ -93,7 +93,8 @@
                     stream << Ch(',');
                 if (pretty) stream << Ch('\n');
             }
-            stream << Str(4 * indent, Ch(' ')) << Ch(']');
+            if (pretty) stream << Str(4 * indent, Ch(' '));
+            stream << Ch(']');
 
         }
         else

It was finally merged to master five months ago.

I you work in C++ and haven’t tasted the Boost libraries, I’d highly encourage you to do so. Modern C++ doesn’t resemble old school C in the slightest. Some of my most favorite libraries in the world have been included in the C++11 standard.

This was done, and made possible, by Adobe’s FlasCC initiative. KIXEYE ported all of their ActionScript to C++ to run both on the client and server with a shared code base, during my multiplayer implementation project, that I lead. The game still runs in the Flash Player… with more explosions.