get_raw_value() to avoid sscanf for float. unsafe_get()

[adrianboston]

I am seeking a way of accessing the 'raw' value - for lack of a better word - of a value. Specifically of a float or double.

Using the following as an example:

  {
    "address": "A string",
    "age": 12
    "name": "Customer 1",
    "salary": 95000.23
  }

salary.get_double() returns that dang 95000.2300000000002 value.

Given that json is a string at some point can we access the float as a string.

I see
double get_double() const
{
validate_json_type( json::type::DOUBLE );
return unsafe_get_double();
}

Is there just an unsafe_get()

[d-frey]

We already have some ideas in that direction, although it will probably not be in the value class, only in the event interface. But I might take the value class into account as well, I just need more time.

[ColinH]

To elaborate, while JSON is a text-based format the value class stores everything converted to some corresponding "binary" representation. In the case of floating-point numbers they are stored as double which means that the original string representation from the JSON input is no longer available.

In the future we might extend our Events interface to selectively use the string representation of numbers instead of only the converted binary representation; once that is done there will be more possibilities including a hypothetical alternative value class that stores numbers as strings.

And btw, though I'm no expert in that particular field I believe that decimal fixed-point representations work better for monetary values than binary floating point since, as you just found out, too, the latter can not represent all decimal fractions precisely.