Bad idea. See http://boost.2283326.n4.nabble.com/Using-property-tree-as-json-reader-writer-td4642292.html

To be short: if you want to manipulate XML or JSON, use XML and JSON libraries.

Property Tree is a format in itself and serialization functions are only there to make ptree easy to move into another format,

not the other way arround. Because ptrees can't represent all xml or JSON can.

PTree is useful both as container and if you don't care much about the specific input format. As soon as you decided

to use a specifc input format which can represent more than ptree can represent, it becomes far less useful.

Joel Lamotte