[ViewVC] Diff of: cvs/CBOR-XS/README

Comparing CBOR-XS/README (file contents):
Revision 1.9 by root, Fri Nov 22 16:18:59 2013 UTC vs.
Revision 1.10 by root, Thu Nov 28 16:09:04 2013 UTC

         # data was decoded
         substr $many_cbor_strings, 0, $length, ""; # remove decoded cbor string
      }
 DESCRIPTION
-    WARNING! This module is very new, and not very well tested (that's up to
-    you to do). Furthermore, details of the implementation might change
-    freely before version 1.0. And lastly, most extensions depend on an IANA
-    assignment, and until that assignment is official, this implementation
-    is not interoperable with other implementations (even future versions of
-    this module) until the assignment is done.
-    You are still invited to try out CBOR, and this module.
     This module converts Perl data structures to the Concise Binary Object
     Representation (CBOR) and vice versa. CBOR is a fast binary
-    serialisation format that aims to use a superset of the JSON data model,
+    serialisation format that aims to use an (almost) superset of the JSON
-    i.e. when you can represent something in JSON, you should be able to
+    data model, i.e. when you can represent something useful in JSON, you
-    represent it in CBOR.
+    should be able to represent it in CBOR.
-    In short, CBOR is a faster and very compact binary alternative to JSON,
+    In short, CBOR is a faster and quite compact binary alternative to JSON,
     with the added ability of supporting serialisation of Perl objects.
     (JSON often compresses better than CBOR though, so if you plan to
-    compress the data later you might want to compare both formats first).
+    compress the data later and speed is less important you might want to
+    compare both formats first).
     To give you a general idea about speed, with texts in the megabyte
     range, "CBOR::XS" usually encodes roughly twice as fast as Storable or
     JSON::XS and decodes about 15%-30% faster than those. The shorter the
     data, the worse Storable performs in comparison.
-    As for compactness, "CBOR::XS" encoded data structures are usually about
+    Regarding compactness, "CBOR::XS"-encoded data structures are usually
-    20% smaller than the same data encoded as (compact) JSON or Storable.
+    about 20% smaller than the same data encoded as (compact) JSON or
+    Storable.
     In addition to the core CBOR data format, this module implements a
-    number of extensions, to support cyclic and self-referencing data
+    number of extensions, to support cyclic and shared data structures (see
-    structures (see "allow_sharing"), string deduplication (see
+    "allow_sharing"), string deduplication (see "pack_strings") and scalar
-    "allow_stringref") and scalar references (always enabled).
+    references (always enabled).
     The primary goal of this module is to be *correct* and the secondary
     goal is to be *fast*. To reach the latter goal it was written in C.
     See MAPPING, below, on how CBOR::XS maps perl values to CBOR values and
         same object, such as an array, is referenced multiple times), but
         instead will emit a reference to the earlier value.
         This means that such values will only be encoded once, and will not
         result in a deep cloning of the value on decode, in decoders
-        supporting the value sharing extension.
+        supporting the value sharing extension. This also makes it possible
+        to encode cyclic data structures.
         It is recommended to leave it off unless you know your communication
         partner supports the value sharing extensions to CBOR
-        (http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing).
+        (<http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing>), as without decoder
+        support, the resulting data structure might be unusable.
         Detecting shared values incurs a runtime overhead when values are
         encoded that have a reference counter large than one, and might
         unnecessarily increase the encoded size, as potentially shared
         values are encode as sharable whether or not they are actually
         At the moment, only targets of references can be shared (e.g.
         scalars, arrays or hashes pointed to by a reference). Weirder
         constructs, such as an array with multiple "copies" of the *same*
         string, which are hard but not impossible to create in Perl, are not
-        supported (this is the same as for Storable).
+        supported (this is the same as with Storable).
-        If $enable is false (the default), then "encode" will encode
+        If $enable is false (the default), then "encode" will encode shared
-        exception when it encounters anything it cannot encode as CBOR.
+        data structures repeatedly, unsharing them in the process. Cyclic
+        data structures cannot be encoded in this mode.
         This option does not affect "decode" in any way - shared values and
         references will always be decoded properly if present.
-    $cbor = $cbor->allow_stringref ([$enable])
+    $cbor = $cbor->pack_strings ([$enable])
-    $enabled = $cbor->get_allow_stringref
+    $enabled = $cbor->get_pack_strings
         If $enable is true (or missing), then "encode" will try not to
         encode the same string twice, but will instead encode a reference to
-        the string instead. Depending on your data format. this can save a
+        the string instead. Depending on your data format, this can save a
         lot of space, but also results in a very large runtime overhead
         (expect encoding times to be 2-4 times as high as without).
         It is recommended to leave it off unless you know your
         communications partner supports the stringref extension to CBOR
-        (http://cbor.schmorp.de/stringref).
+        (<http://cbor.schmorp.de/stringref>), as without decoder support,
+        the resulting data structure might not be usable.
-        If $enable is false (the default), then "encode" will encode
+        If $enable is false (the default), then "encode" will encode strings
-        exception when it encounters anything it cannot encode as CBOR.
+        the standard CBOR way.
         This option does not affect "decode" in any way - string references
         will always be decoded properly if present.
     $cbor = $cbor->filter ([$cb->($tag, $value)])
         it must be a code reference that is called with tag and value, and
         is responsible for decoding the value. If no entry exists, it
         returns no values.
         Example: decode all tags not handled internally into
-        CBOR::XS::Tagged objects, with no other special handling (useful
+        "CBOR::XS::Tagged" objects, with no other special handling (useful
         when working with potentially "unsafe" CBOR data).
            CBOR::XS->new->filter (sub { })->decode ($cbor_data);
         Example: provide a global filter for tag 1347375694, converting the
     integers
         CBOR integers become (numeric) perl scalars. On perls without 64 bit
         support, 64 bit integers will be truncated or otherwise corrupted.
     byte strings
-        Byte strings will become octet strings in Perl (the byte values
+        Byte strings will become octet strings in Perl (the Byte values
         0..255 will simply become characters of the same value in Perl).
     UTF-8 strings
         UTF-8 strings in CBOR will be decoded, i.e. the UTF-8 octets will be
         decoded into proper Unicode code points. At the moment, the validity
     tagged values
         Tagged items consists of a numeric tag and another CBOR value.
         See "TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS" and the description of "->filter"
-        for details.
+        for details on which tags are handled how.
     anything else
         Anything else (e.g. unsupported simple values) will raise a decoding
         error.
   PERL -> CBOR
     The mapping from Perl to CBOR is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
-    truly typeless language, so we can only guess which CBOR type is meant
+    typeless language. That means this module can only guess which CBOR type
-    by a Perl value.
+    is meant by a perl value.
     hash references
         Perl hash references become CBOR maps. As there is no inherent
         ordering in hash keys (or CBOR maps), they will usually be encoded
-        in a pseudo-random order.
+        in a pseudo-random order. This order can be different each time a
+        hahs is encoded.
         Currently, tied hashes will use the indefinite-length format, while
         normal hashes will use the fixed-length format.
     array references
         Perl array references become fixed-length CBOR arrays.
     other references
-        Other unblessed references are generally not allowed and will cause
+        Other unblessed references will be represented using the indirection
-        an exception to be thrown, except for references to the integers 0
+        tag extension (tag value 22098,
-        and 1, which get turned into false and true in CBOR.
+        <http://cbor.schmorp.de/indirection>). CBOR decoders are guaranteed
+        to be able to decode these values somehow, by either "doing the
+        right thing", decoding into a generic tagged object, simply ignoring
+        the tag, or something else.
     CBOR::XS::Tagged objects
         Objects of this type must be arrays consisting of a single "[tag,
         value]" pair. The (numerical) tag will be encoded as a CBOR tag, the
-        value will be encoded as appropriate for the value. You cna use
+        value will be encoded as appropriate for the value. You must use
         "CBOR::XS::tag" to create such objects.
     Types::Serialiser::true, Types::Serialiser::false,
     Types::Serialiser::error
         These special values become CBOR true, CBOR false and CBOR undefined
            # dump as number
            encode_cbor [2]                      # yields [2]
            encode_cbor [-3.0e17]                # yields [-3e+17]
            my $value = 5; encode_cbor [$value]  # yields [5]
-           # used as string, so dump as string
+           # used as string, so dump as string (either byte or text)
            print $value;
            encode_cbor [$value]                 # yields ["5"]
            # undef becomes null
            encode_cbor [undef]                  # yields [null]
            my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
            "$x";        # stringified
            $x .= "";    # another, more awkward way to stringify
            print $x;    # perl does it for you, too, quite often
+        You can force whether a string ie encoded as byte or text string by
+        using "utf8::upgrade" and "utf8::downgrade"):
+          utf8::upgrade $x;   # encode $x as text string
+          utf8::downgrade $x; # encode $x as byte string
+        Perl doesn't define what operations up- and downgrade strings, so if
+        the difference between byte and text is important, you should up- or
+        downgrade your string as late as possible before encoding.
         You can force the type to be a CBOR number by numifying it:
            my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
            $x += 0;     # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
       sub URI::TO_CBOR {
          my ($self) = @_;
          my $uri = "$self"; # stringify uri
          utf8::upgrade $uri; # make sure it will be encoded as UTF-8 string
-         CBOR::XS::tagged 32, "$_[0]"
+         CBOR::XS::tag 32, "$_[0]"
       }
     This will encode URIs as a UTF-8 string with tag 32, which indicates an
     URI.
   ENFORCED TAGS
     These tags are always handled when decoding, and their handling cannot
     be overriden by the user.
-    <unassigned> (perl-object, <http://cbor.schmorp.de/perl-object>)
+    26 (perl-object, <http://cbor.schmorp.de/perl-object>)
         These tags are automatically created (and decoded) for serialisable
         objects using the "FREEZE/THAW" methods (the Types::Serialier object
         serialisation protocol). See "OBJECT SERIALISATION" for details.
-    <unassigned>, <unassigned> (sharable, sharedref, L
+    28, 29 (sharable, sharedref, L <http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing>)
-    <http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing>)
         These tags are automatically decoded when encountered, resulting in
         shared values in the decoded object. They are only encoded, however,
         when "allow_sharable" is enabled.
-    <unassigned>, <unassigned> (stringref-namespace, stringref, L
+    256, 25 (stringref-namespace, stringref, L
     <http://cbor.schmorp.de/stringref>)
         These tags are automatically decoded when encountered. They are only
-        encoded, however, when "allow_stringref" is enabled.
+        encoded, however, when "pack_strings" is enabled.
     22098 (indirection, <http://cbor.schmorp.de/indirection>)
         This tag is automatically generated when a reference are encountered
         (with the exception of hash and array refernces). It is converted to
         a reference when decoding.

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Comparing CBOR-XS/README (file contents): Revision 1.9 by root, Fri Nov 22 16:18:59 2013 UTC vs. Revision 1.10 by root, Thu Nov 28 16:09:04 2013 UTC

Diff Legend

Comparing CBOR-XS/README (file contents):
Revision 1.9 by root, Fri Nov 22 16:18:59 2013 UTC vs.
Revision 1.10 by root, Thu Nov 28 16:09:04 2013 UTC