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Revision: 1.4
Committed: Sat Oct 26 22:25:47 2013 UTC (10 years, 6 months ago) by root
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1 root 1.1 =head1 NAME
2    
3     CBOR::XS - Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR, RFC7049)
4    
5     =encoding utf-8
6    
7     =head1 SYNOPSIS
8    
9     use CBOR::XS;
10    
11     $binary_cbor_data = encode_cbor $perl_value;
12     $perl_value = decode_cbor $binary_cbor_data;
13    
14     # OO-interface
15    
16     $coder = CBOR::XS->new;
17     #TODO
18    
19     =head1 DESCRIPTION
20    
21     WARNING! THIS IS A PRE-ALPHA RELEASE! IT WILL CRASH, CORRUPT YOUR DATA AND
22     EAT YOUR CHILDREN!
23    
24     This module converts Perl data structures to CBOR and vice versa. Its
25     primary goal is to be I<correct> and its secondary goal is to be
26     I<fast>. To reach the latter goal it was written in C.
27    
28     See MAPPING, below, on how CBOR::XS maps perl values to CBOR values and
29     vice versa.
30    
31     =cut
32    
33     package CBOR::XS;
34    
35     use common::sense;
36    
37 root 1.3 our $VERSION = 0.02;
38 root 1.1 our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
39    
40     our @EXPORT = qw(encode_cbor decode_cbor);
41    
42     use Exporter;
43     use XSLoader;
44    
45 root 1.3 our $MAGIC = "\xd9\xd9\xf7";
46    
47 root 1.1 =head1 FUNCTIONAL INTERFACE
48    
49     The following convenience methods are provided by this module. They are
50     exported by default:
51    
52     =over 4
53    
54     =item $cbor_data = encode_cbor $perl_scalar
55    
56     Converts the given Perl data structure to CBOR representation. Croaks on
57     error.
58    
59     =item $perl_scalar = decode_cbor $cbor_data
60    
61     The opposite of C<encode_cbor>: expects a valid CBOR string to parse,
62     returning the resulting perl scalar. Croaks on error.
63    
64     =back
65    
66    
67     =head1 OBJECT-ORIENTED INTERFACE
68    
69     The object oriented interface lets you configure your own encoding or
70     decoding style, within the limits of supported formats.
71    
72     =over 4
73    
74     =item $cbor = new CBOR::XS
75    
76     Creates a new CBOR::XS object that can be used to de/encode CBOR
77     strings. All boolean flags described below are by default I<disabled>.
78    
79     The mutators for flags all return the CBOR object again and thus calls can
80     be chained:
81    
82     #TODO
83     my $cbor = CBOR::XS->new->encode ({a => [1,2]});
84    
85     =item $cbor = $cbor->max_depth ([$maximum_nesting_depth])
86    
87     =item $max_depth = $cbor->get_max_depth
88    
89     Sets the maximum nesting level (default C<512>) accepted while encoding
90     or decoding. If a higher nesting level is detected in CBOR data or a Perl
91     data structure, then the encoder and decoder will stop and croak at that
92     point.
93    
94     Nesting level is defined by number of hash- or arrayrefs that the encoder
95     needs to traverse to reach a given point or the number of C<{> or C<[>
96     characters without their matching closing parenthesis crossed to reach a
97     given character in a string.
98    
99     Setting the maximum depth to one disallows any nesting, so that ensures
100     that the object is only a single hash/object or array.
101    
102     If no argument is given, the highest possible setting will be used, which
103     is rarely useful.
104    
105     Note that nesting is implemented by recursion in C. The default value has
106     been chosen to be as large as typical operating systems allow without
107     crashing.
108    
109     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
110    
111     =item $cbor = $cbor->max_size ([$maximum_string_size])
112    
113     =item $max_size = $cbor->get_max_size
114    
115     Set the maximum length a CBOR string may have (in bytes) where decoding
116     is being attempted. The default is C<0>, meaning no limit. When C<decode>
117     is called on a string that is longer then this many bytes, it will not
118     attempt to decode the string but throw an exception. This setting has no
119     effect on C<encode> (yet).
120    
121     If no argument is given, the limit check will be deactivated (same as when
122     C<0> is specified).
123    
124     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
125    
126     =item $cbor_data = $cbor->encode ($perl_scalar)
127    
128     Converts the given Perl data structure (a scalar value) to its CBOR
129     representation.
130    
131     =item $perl_scalar = $cbor->decode ($cbor_data)
132    
133     The opposite of C<encode>: expects CBOR data and tries to parse it,
134     returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
135    
136     =item ($perl_scalar, $octets) = $cbor->decode_prefix ($cbor_data)
137    
138     This works like the C<decode> method, but instead of raising an exception
139     when there is trailing garbage after the CBOR string, it will silently
140     stop parsing there and return the number of characters consumed so far.
141    
142     This is useful if your CBOR texts are not delimited by an outer protocol
143     and you need to know where the first CBOR string ends amd the next one
144     starts.
145    
146     CBOR::XS->new->decode_prefix ("......")
147     => ("...", 3)
148    
149     =back
150    
151    
152     =head1 MAPPING
153    
154     This section describes how CBOR::XS maps Perl values to CBOR values and
155     vice versa. These mappings are designed to "do the right thing" in most
156     circumstances automatically, preserving round-tripping characteristics
157     (what you put in comes out as something equivalent).
158    
159     For the more enlightened: note that in the following descriptions,
160     lowercase I<perl> refers to the Perl interpreter, while uppercase I<Perl>
161     refers to the abstract Perl language itself.
162    
163    
164     =head2 CBOR -> PERL
165    
166     =over 4
167    
168 root 1.4 =item integers
169    
170     CBOR integers become (numeric) perl scalars. On perls without 64 bit
171     support, 64 bit integers will be truncated or otherwise corrupted.
172    
173     =item byte strings
174    
175     Byte strings will become octet strings in Perl (the byte values 0..255
176     will simply become characters of the same value in Perl).
177    
178     =item UTF-8 strings
179    
180     UTF-8 strings in CBOR will be decoded, i.e. the UTF-8 octets will be
181     decoded into proper Unicode code points. At the moment, the validity of
182     the UTF-8 octets will not be validated - corrupt input will result in
183     corrupted Perl strings.
184    
185     =item arrays, maps
186    
187     CBOR arrays and CBOR maps will be converted into references to a Perl
188     array or hash, respectively. The keys of the map will be stringified
189     during this process.
190    
191     =item true, false
192 root 1.1
193     These CBOR values become C<CBOR::XS::true> and C<CBOR::XS::false>,
194     respectively. They are overloaded to act almost exactly like the numbers
195     C<1> and C<0>. You can check whether a scalar is a CBOR boolean by using
196     the C<CBOR::XS::is_bool> function.
197    
198 root 1.4 =item null, undefined
199    
200     CBOR null and undefined values becomes C<undef> in Perl (in the future,
201     Undefined may raise an exception or something else).
202 root 1.1
203 root 1.4 =item tags
204    
205     Tagged items consists of a numeric tag and another CBOR value. The tag
206     55799 is ignored (this tag implements the magic header).
207    
208     All other tags are currently converted into a L<CBOR::XS::Tagged> object,
209     which is simply a blessed array reference consistsing of the numeric tag
210     value followed by the (decoded) BOR value.
211    
212     =item anything else
213    
214     Anything else (e.g. unsupported simple values) will raise a decoding
215     error.
216 root 1.1
217     =back
218    
219    
220     =head2 PERL -> CBOR
221    
222     The mapping from Perl to CBOR is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
223     truly typeless language, so we can only guess which CBOR type is meant by
224     a Perl value.
225    
226     =over 4
227    
228     =item hash references
229    
230 root 1.4 Perl hash references become CBOR maps. As there is no inherent ordering in
231     hash keys (or CBOR maps), they will usually be encoded in a pseudo-random
232     order.
233    
234     Currently, tied hashes will use the indefinite-length format, while normal
235     hashes will use the fixed-length format.
236 root 1.1
237     =item array references
238    
239 root 1.4 Perl array references become fixed-length CBOR arrays.
240 root 1.1
241     =item other references
242    
243     Other unblessed references are generally not allowed and will cause an
244     exception to be thrown, except for references to the integers C<0> and
245 root 1.4 C<1>, which get turned into false and true in CBOR.
246    
247     =item CBOR::XS::Tagged objects
248    
249     Objects of this type must be arrays consisting of a single C<[tag, value]>
250     pair. The (numerical) tag will be encoded as a CBOR tag, the value will be
251     encoded as appropriate for the value.
252 root 1.1
253     =item CBOR::XS::true, CBOR::XS::false
254    
255 root 1.4 These special values become CBOR true and CBOR false values,
256 root 1.1 respectively. You can also use C<\1> and C<\0> directly if you want.
257    
258     =item blessed objects
259    
260 root 1.4 Other blessed objects currently need to have a C<TO_CBOR> method. It
261     will be called on every object that is being serialised, and must return
262     something that can be encoded in CBOR.
263 root 1.1
264     =item simple scalars
265    
266     TODO
267     Simple Perl scalars (any scalar that is not a reference) are the most
268     difficult objects to encode: CBOR::XS will encode undefined scalars as
269 root 1.4 CBOR null values, scalars that have last been used in a string context
270 root 1.1 before encoding as CBOR strings, and anything else as number value:
271    
272     # dump as number
273     encode_cbor [2] # yields [2]
274     encode_cbor [-3.0e17] # yields [-3e+17]
275     my $value = 5; encode_cbor [$value] # yields [5]
276    
277     # used as string, so dump as string
278     print $value;
279     encode_cbor [$value] # yields ["5"]
280    
281     # undef becomes null
282     encode_cbor [undef] # yields [null]
283    
284     You can force the type to be a CBOR string by stringifying it:
285    
286     my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
287     "$x"; # stringified
288     $x .= ""; # another, more awkward way to stringify
289     print $x; # perl does it for you, too, quite often
290    
291     You can force the type to be a CBOR number by numifying it:
292    
293     my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
294     $x += 0; # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
295     $x *= 1; # same thing, the choice is yours.
296    
297     You can not currently force the type in other, less obscure, ways. Tell me
298     if you need this capability (but don't forget to explain why it's needed
299     :).
300    
301 root 1.4 Perl values that seem to be integers generally use the shortest possible
302     representation. Floating-point values will use either the IEEE single
303     format if possible without loss of precision, otherwise the IEEE double
304     format will be used. Perls that use formats other than IEEE double to
305     represent numerical values are supported, but might suffer loss of
306     precision.
307 root 1.1
308     =back
309    
310    
311 root 1.3 =head2 MAGIC HEADER
312    
313     There is no way to distinguish CBOR from other formats
314     programmatically. To make it easier to distinguish CBOR from other
315     formats, the CBOR specification has a special "magic string" that can be
316     prepended to any CBOR string without changing it's meaning.
317    
318     This string is available as C<$CBOR::XS::MAGIC>. This module does not
319     prepend this string tot he CBOR data it generates, but it will ignroe it
320     if present, so users can prepend this string as a "file type" indicator as
321     required.
322    
323    
324 root 1.1 =head2 CBOR and JSON
325    
326 root 1.4 CBOR is supposed to implement a superset of the JSON data model, and is,
327     with some coercion, able to represent all JSON texts (something that other
328     "binary JSON" formats such as BSON generally do not support).
329    
330     CBOR implements some extra hints and support for JSON interoperability,
331     and the spec offers further guidance for conversion between CBOR and
332     JSON. None of this is currently implemented in CBOR, and the guidelines
333     in the spec do not result in correct round-tripping of data. If JSON
334     interoperability is improved in the future, then the goal will be to
335     ensure that decoded JSON data will round-trip encoding and decoding to
336     CBOR intact.
337 root 1.1
338    
339     =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
340    
341     When you are using CBOR in a protocol, talking to untrusted potentially
342     hostile creatures requires relatively few measures.
343    
344     First of all, your CBOR decoder should be secure, that is, should not have
345     any buffer overflows. Obviously, this module should ensure that and I am
346     trying hard on making that true, but you never know.
347    
348     Second, you need to avoid resource-starving attacks. That means you should
349     limit the size of CBOR data you accept, or make sure then when your
350     resources run out, that's just fine (e.g. by using a separate process that
351     can crash safely). The size of a CBOR string in octets is usually a good
352     indication of the size of the resources required to decode it into a Perl
353     structure. While CBOR::XS can check the size of the CBOR text, it might be
354     too late when you already have it in memory, so you might want to check
355     the size before you accept the string.
356    
357     Third, CBOR::XS recurses using the C stack when decoding objects and
358     arrays. The C stack is a limited resource: for instance, on my amd64
359     machine with 8MB of stack size I can decode around 180k nested arrays but
360     only 14k nested CBOR objects (due to perl itself recursing deeply on croak
361     to free the temporary). If that is exceeded, the program crashes. To be
362     conservative, the default nesting limit is set to 512. If your process
363     has a smaller stack, you should adjust this setting accordingly with the
364     C<max_depth> method.
365    
366     Something else could bomb you, too, that I forgot to think of. In that
367     case, you get to keep the pieces. I am always open for hints, though...
368    
369     Also keep in mind that CBOR::XS might leak contents of your Perl data
370     structures in its error messages, so when you serialise sensitive
371     information you might want to make sure that exceptions thrown by CBOR::XS
372     will not end up in front of untrusted eyes.
373    
374     =head1 CBOR IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
375    
376     This section contains some random implementation notes. They do not
377     describe guaranteed behaviour, but merely behaviour as-is implemented
378     right now.
379    
380     64 bit integers are only properly decoded when Perl was built with 64 bit
381     support.
382    
383     Strings and arrays are encoded with a definite length. Hashes as well,
384     unless they are tied (or otherwise magical).
385    
386     Only the double data type is supported for NV data types - when Perl uses
387     long double to represent floating point values, they might not be encoded
388     properly. Half precision types are accepted, but not encoded.
389    
390     Strict mode and canonical mode are not implemented.
391    
392    
393     =head1 THREADS
394    
395     This module is I<not> guaranteed to be thread safe and there are no
396     plans to change this until Perl gets thread support (as opposed to the
397     horribly slow so-called "threads" which are simply slow and bloated
398     process simulations - use fork, it's I<much> faster, cheaper, better).
399    
400     (It might actually work, but you have been warned).
401    
402    
403     =head1 BUGS
404    
405     While the goal of this module is to be correct, that unfortunately does
406     not mean it's bug-free, only that I think its design is bug-free. If you
407     keep reporting bugs they will be fixed swiftly, though.
408    
409     Please refrain from using rt.cpan.org or any other bug reporting
410     service. I put the contact address into my modules for a reason.
411    
412     =cut
413    
414     our $true = do { bless \(my $dummy = 1), "CBOR::XS::Boolean" };
415     our $false = do { bless \(my $dummy = 0), "CBOR::XS::Boolean" };
416    
417     sub true() { $true }
418     sub false() { $false }
419    
420     sub is_bool($) {
421     UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "CBOR::XS::Boolean"
422     # or UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "CBOR::Literal"
423     }
424    
425     XSLoader::load "CBOR::XS", $VERSION;
426    
427     package CBOR::XS::Boolean;
428    
429     use overload
430     "0+" => sub { ${$_[0]} },
431     "++" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} + 1 },
432     "--" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} - 1 },
433     fallback => 1;
434    
435     1;
436    
437     =head1 SEE ALSO
438    
439     The L<JSON> and L<JSON::XS> modules that do similar, but human-readable,
440     serialisation.
441    
442     =head1 AUTHOR
443    
444     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
445     http://home.schmorp.de/
446    
447     =cut
448