[PHP] Walk JSON string values without decoding object trees

[adamziel]

Json URL rewriting no longer builds a decoded PHP tree for every candidate document. The iterator validates the JSON once, exposes only string-value spans, and preserves all untouched JSON bytes when a leaf changes.\n\nThe test covers nested leaves, original formatting outside a changed leaf, a 10,000-item document, and malformed Unicode escapes.

[github-actions]

Pull pipeline performance — large-directory

Site: large-directory · 2,000+ plus targeted file-transfer scenarios files · 10,000 posts · 25,000 postmeta · PHP 8.5.9

Stage	PR	trunk	Δ	Status	Details
playground-sqlite-db-pull	7.56 s	7.44 s	⚪ +114 ms (+1.5%)	✓	condition=db-pull in PHP.wasm runtime=php.wasm 8.3 wp_mysql_parser=enabled mode=lexer native_lexer=verified native_token_stream=WP_MySQL_Native_Token_Stream native_token_count=18 native_parser=selected trunk: condition=db-pull in PHP.wasm runtime=php.wasm 8.3 wp_mysql_parser=enabled mode=lexer native_lexer=verified native_token_stream=WP_MySQL_Native_Token_Stream native_token_count=18 native_parser=selected
playground-sqlite-db-apply	2.99 s	3.11 s	⚪ -123 ms (-3.9%)	✓	condition=db-apply to SQLite in PHP.wasm runtime=php.wasm 8.3 wp_mysql_parser=enabled mode=parser native_lexer=verified native_token_stream=WP_MySQL_Native_Token_Stream native_token_count=18 native_parser=verified native_ast=WP_MySQL_Native_Parser_Node sqlite_driver_parser=verified trunk: condition=db-apply to SQLite in PHP.wasm runtime=php.wasm 8.3 wp_mysql_parser=enabled mode=parser native_lexer=verified native_token_stream=WP_MySQL_Native_Token_Stream native_token_count=18 native_parser=verified native_ast=WP_MySQL_Native_Parser_Node sqlite_driver_parser=verified
Total	10.55 s	10.56 s	⚪ -9 ms (-0.1%)

_{Numbers carry runner noise; treat single-run deltas as directional, not authoritative.}

_{📈 Trunk performance history — commit-by-commit timeline.}