fix: respect string literals when splitting JSON objects

[JSap0914]

Summary

split_and_parse_json_objects splits a JSON array string into individual
object segments by tracking brace ({/}) depth. The scan counted every
brace, including those that appear inside JSON string values. A value such as
"x}y" therefore terminated the object early, so the resulting segment was
invalid JSON, failed to parse, and the valid objects were silently dropped.

Example (before this change):

>>> split_and_parse_json_objects('[{"a": "x}y"}, {"b": 2}]')
([], ['{"a": "x}'])

Both objects are lost even though the input is valid JSON.

The fix tracks string state (and backslash escapes) so braces inside string
values no longer affect the depth count:

>>> split_and_parse_json_objects('[{"a": "x}y"}, {"b": 2}]')
([{'a': 'x}y'}, {'b': 2}], [])

This helper is used to recover individual objects from LLM extraction output
(extraction_strategy.py), where string values containing braces are common.

List of files changed and why

• crawl4ai/utils.py - make the brace scanner in split_and_parse_json_objects string-aware (skip braces inside strings, honor \ escapes).
• tests/general/test_split_and_parse_json_objects.py - new regression tests covering closing/opening braces and escaped quotes inside string values, plus plain/balanced cases.

How Has This Been Tested?

$ python -m pytest tests/general/test_split_and_parse_json_objects.py tests/regression/test_reg_utils.py -q
76 passed in 2.07s

The three new cases fail on develop (objects dropped) and pass with this change; the existing tests/regression/test_reg_utils.py suite continues to pass.

Checklist:

• My code follows the style guidelines of this project
• I have performed a self-review of my own code
• I have commented my code, particularly in hard-to-understand areas
• I have made corresponding changes to the documentation
• I have added/updated unit tests that prove my fix is effective or that my feature works
• New and existing unit tests pass locally with my changes

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

Note

Copilot was unable to run its full agentic suite in this review.

This PR hardens split_and_parse_json_objects so it won’t mis-split JSON objects when braces appear inside JSON string values, and adds regression tests to prevent recurrence.

Changes:

• Track string/escape state while scanning to ignore {/} inside JSON string values.
• Add pytest regression cases covering braces inside string values and escaped quotes.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

File	Description
tests/general/test_split_and_parse_json_objects.py	Adds regression tests for braces/quotes inside JSON strings.
crawl4ai/utils.py	Updates splitting logic to ignore braces while inside JSON strings.

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