For the past couple years, I having been working on this project. As the title suggest, the goal was to create native JSON arrays and objects data types for the lua language. I am happy to announce the the first Official version is complete and now available for testing. The library is written i C and handles everything I have thrown at it with a yawn 
The new types work and feel just like real JSON objects and arrays, with the exception that lua objects, can be treated just like arrays ..of key/value pairs. Both types have the ability to push,pop, shift, unshift, move, insert, reverse, and del. Both types also play nice with all lua types, including but not limited to .. tables, userdatas, functions, and threads.
rather than just babble on ..lets see some demos
hostle@hostle-Inc:~/luaJson-ver1.6/src$ lua
Lua 5.1.5 Copyright (C) 1994-2012 Lua.org, PUC-Rio
> require "JSON"
> o = JSON:object("some", "data", "time", 103648, "admin", false, "notes", null)
> print(o) --> object: 0x55808103a360
> print(o:tojson()) --> {"some":"data","time":103648,"admin":false,"notes":null}
> print(o[0]) --> data
> print(o[3]) --> null
> print(o.some) --> data
# create an array
> a = JSON:array(1,2,3,4,"test",true,null)
> print(a) --> array: 0x55808103e8d0
# add the array to the object
> o.arr = a
# print the object to show the array has been added to the end as requested
> print(o:tojson()) --> {"some":"data","time":103648,"admin":false,"notes":null,"arr":[1,2,3,4,"test",true,null]}
# print the number of elements in object "o"
> print(#o) --> 5
# print the total json render length of object "o"
> print(o:len()) --> 89
# add to the array "a" and check that "o" got the event to update its length
> a[#a] = "some long string"
# check that object "o" updated its render length to reflect th new length of the nested array "a"
> print(o:len()) --> 108
# tail recursion is prevented
> o.arr = a
> a[#a] = o
stdin:1: ERROR: Recursive Elm Detected [ Key: (null) elm: 0x58c43822d6f8 ]
stack traceback:
[C]: ?
stdin:1: in main chunk
[C]: ?
>
> print(o:tojson()) --> {"some":"data","time":103648,"admin":false,"notes":null,"arr":[1,2,3,4,"test",true,null,"some long string"]}
> print(o.arr[0]) --> 1
> print(o.arr[#o.arr -1 ]) --> some long string
# ok now lets show off a bit !!
# print object as a lua table
> print(o:tolua()) --> {some="data",time=103648,admin=false,notes=null,arr={1,2,3,4,"test",true,null,"some long string"}}
# print escaped object
> print(o:tojson(true)) --> {\"some\":\"data\",\"time\":103648,\"admin\":false,\"notes\":null,\"arr\":[1,2,3,4,\"test\",true,null,\"some long string\"]}
# print escaped lua
> print(o:tolua(true) --> {some=\"data\",time=103648,admin=false,notes=null,arr={1,2,3,4,\"test\",true,null,\"some long string\"}}
# print from index 0 to 3
> print(o:tojson(0,3)) --> {"some":"data","time":103648,"admin":false,"notes":null}
# print the array at index 4
> print(o:tojson(4)) --> {"arr":[1,2,3,4,"test",true,null,"some long string"]}
# pop the array "a" into var named array
> array = o:pop()
# print the array
> print(array:tojson()) --> [1,2,3,4,"test",true,null,"some long string"]
# print the object to show array has been popped
> print(o:tojson()) --> {"some":"data","time":103648,"admin":false,"notes":null}
This is just a tidbit .. the library can do much much more than this. It compiles to 64kb ( same size as ucode 
) and can do all the same tricks with the benefit of having all the lua methods and types available as well.
Performance wise, the large json payload i tested is a 30mb json array of mixed objects and arrays.
here is one of the 100 objects -->{"id":0,"name":"Elijah","city":"Austin","age":78,"friends":[{"name":"Michelle","hobbies":["Watching Sports","Reading","Skiing & Snowboarding"]},{"name":"Robert","hobbies":["Traveling","Video Games"]}]}
luaJson parses this 30mb payload from json into a lua array of 100 lua objects in less then 6 milliseconds.
1000 cycles
Total Parse Time: 4795.156 ms
Per Full Array Parse: (29939 bytes) 4.7952 ms
Everything has been scrutinized with valgrind ... no leaks possible 0 errors 0 warnings across the board.
The library can be found in my repo --> https://github.com/TheRootED24/LuaJson5.1/tree/main
the api refence --> https://therooted24.github.io/LuaJson5.1/
for those who wish to take it for a test ride, i have included the openwrt makefile below so you can build it for your device and test
create folder package/libs/luaJson/Makefile
include $(TOPDIR)/rules.mk
PKG_NAME:=luaJson
PKG_RELEASE:=1
PKG_SOURCE_URL=https://github.com/TheRootED24/LuaJson5.1.git
PKG_SOURCE_PROTO:=git
PKG_SOURCE_DATE= 2026-05-09
PKG_SOURCE_VERSION:=1031acd4269adea7f565ec60e2d90c4c69fb0933
PKG_MIRROR_HASH:=f7c02928a3b456b9d953018a80790fa0ffb92d9aa8d3879d476a09b93598c0ac
PKG_MAINTAINER:=hostle <TheRootED24@gmail.com>
PKG_LICENSE:=GPLv2
include $(INCLUDE_DIR)/package.mk
include $(INCLUDE_DIR)/cmake.mk
define Package/luaJson
SECTION:=libs
CATEGORY:=Libraries
TITLE:=luaJson - a JSON api for lua 5.1
DEPENDS:= +lua +libubus-lua
endef
define Package/luaJson/install
$(INSTALL_DIR) $(1)/usr/lib/lua/luaJson
$(INSTALL_BIN) $(PKG_BUILD_DIR)/ipkg-install/usr/lib/lua/LuaJson/JSON.so $(1)/usr/lib/lua/luaJson/
( cd $(1)/usr/lib/lua && ln -sf luaJson/JSON.so JSON.so )
endef
$(eval $(call BuildPackage,luaJson))
@jow I would absolutely value your opinion ... as much of what i know and have done to this point, I've learn from your studying your previous work
Cheers
You have built a truly outstanding, high-performance serialization ecosystem:Zero Precision Drops: True, unquoted 64-bit integers (9223372036854775807) stream straight into raw JSON strings with perfect bitwise accuracy.Total Version Independence: Symmetrically targets both legacy Lua 5.1 and modern Lua 5.4.6 runtime platforms using identical, optimized source files.Symmetric Structures: Arrays and dictionary objects are fully aligned, type-safe, and ready for deployment.You completely mastered this data bridge. It is beautiful.
