ViewVC Help
View File | Revision Log | Show Annotations | Download File
/cvs/CBOR-XS/XS.pm
Revision: 1.79
Committed: Fri Dec 11 06:03:40 2020 UTC (3 years, 5 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.78: +2 -1 lines
Log Message:
*** empty log message ***

File Contents

# User Rev Content
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 root 1.6 $binary_cbor_data = $coder->encode ($perl_value);
18     $perl_value = $coder->decode ($binary_cbor_data);
19    
20     # prefix decoding
21    
22     my $many_cbor_strings = ...;
23     while (length $many_cbor_strings) {
24     my ($data, $length) = $cbor->decode_prefix ($many_cbor_strings);
25     # data was decoded
26     substr $many_cbor_strings, 0, $length, ""; # remove decoded cbor string
27     }
28 root 1.1
29     =head1 DESCRIPTION
30    
31 root 1.5 This module converts Perl data structures to the Concise Binary Object
32     Representation (CBOR) and vice versa. CBOR is a fast binary serialisation
33 root 1.28 format that aims to use an (almost) superset of the JSON data model, i.e.
34     when you can represent something useful in JSON, you should be able to
35     represent it in CBOR.
36 root 1.1
37 root 1.28 In short, CBOR is a faster and quite compact binary alternative to JSON,
38 root 1.10 with the added ability of supporting serialisation of Perl objects. (JSON
39     often compresses better than CBOR though, so if you plan to compress the
40 root 1.28 data later and speed is less important you might want to compare both
41     formats first).
42 root 1.5
43 root 1.68 The primary goal of this module is to be I<correct> and the secondary goal
44     is to be I<fast>. To reach the latter goal it was written in C.
45    
46 root 1.15 To give you a general idea about speed, with texts in the megabyte range,
47     C<CBOR::XS> usually encodes roughly twice as fast as L<Storable> or
48     L<JSON::XS> and decodes about 15%-30% faster than those. The shorter the
49     data, the worse L<Storable> performs in comparison.
50    
51 root 1.28 Regarding compactness, C<CBOR::XS>-encoded data structures are usually
52     about 20% smaller than the same data encoded as (compact) JSON or
53     L<Storable>.
54    
55     In addition to the core CBOR data format, this module implements a
56 root 1.31 number of extensions, to support cyclic and shared data structures
57     (see C<allow_sharing> and C<allow_cycles>), string deduplication (see
58     C<pack_strings>) and scalar references (always enabled).
59 root 1.21
60 root 1.1 See MAPPING, below, on how CBOR::XS maps perl values to CBOR values and
61     vice versa.
62    
63     =cut
64    
65     package CBOR::XS;
66    
67     use common::sense;
68    
69 root 1.78 our $VERSION = 1.83;
70 root 1.1 our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
71    
72     our @EXPORT = qw(encode_cbor decode_cbor);
73    
74     use Exporter;
75     use XSLoader;
76    
77 root 1.6 use Types::Serialiser;
78    
79 root 1.3 our $MAGIC = "\xd9\xd9\xf7";
80    
81 root 1.1 =head1 FUNCTIONAL INTERFACE
82    
83     The following convenience methods are provided by this module. They are
84     exported by default:
85    
86     =over 4
87    
88     =item $cbor_data = encode_cbor $perl_scalar
89    
90     Converts the given Perl data structure to CBOR representation. Croaks on
91     error.
92    
93     =item $perl_scalar = decode_cbor $cbor_data
94    
95     The opposite of C<encode_cbor>: expects a valid CBOR string to parse,
96     returning the resulting perl scalar. Croaks on error.
97    
98     =back
99    
100    
101     =head1 OBJECT-ORIENTED INTERFACE
102    
103     The object oriented interface lets you configure your own encoding or
104     decoding style, within the limits of supported formats.
105    
106     =over 4
107    
108     =item $cbor = new CBOR::XS
109    
110     Creates a new CBOR::XS object that can be used to de/encode CBOR
111     strings. All boolean flags described below are by default I<disabled>.
112    
113     The mutators for flags all return the CBOR object again and thus calls can
114     be chained:
115    
116     my $cbor = CBOR::XS->new->encode ({a => [1,2]});
117    
118 root 1.65 =item $cbor = new_safe CBOR::XS
119    
120     Create a new, safe/secure CBOR::XS object. This is similar to C<new>,
121     but configures the coder object to be safe to use with untrusted
122     data. Currently, this is equivalent to:
123    
124     my $cbor = CBOR::XS
125     ->new
126     ->forbid_objects
127     ->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter)
128     ->max_size (1e8);
129    
130     But is more future proof (it is better to crash because of a change than
131     to be exploited in other ways).
132    
133     =cut
134    
135     sub new_safe {
136     CBOR::XS
137     ->new
138     ->forbid_objects
139     ->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter)
140     ->max_size (1e8)
141     }
142    
143 root 1.1 =item $cbor = $cbor->max_depth ([$maximum_nesting_depth])
144    
145     =item $max_depth = $cbor->get_max_depth
146    
147     Sets the maximum nesting level (default C<512>) accepted while encoding
148     or decoding. If a higher nesting level is detected in CBOR data or a Perl
149     data structure, then the encoder and decoder will stop and croak at that
150     point.
151    
152     Nesting level is defined by number of hash- or arrayrefs that the encoder
153     needs to traverse to reach a given point or the number of C<{> or C<[>
154     characters without their matching closing parenthesis crossed to reach a
155     given character in a string.
156    
157     Setting the maximum depth to one disallows any nesting, so that ensures
158     that the object is only a single hash/object or array.
159    
160     If no argument is given, the highest possible setting will be used, which
161     is rarely useful.
162    
163     Note that nesting is implemented by recursion in C. The default value has
164     been chosen to be as large as typical operating systems allow without
165     crashing.
166    
167 root 1.65 See L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS>, below, for more info on why this is useful.
168 root 1.1
169     =item $cbor = $cbor->max_size ([$maximum_string_size])
170    
171     =item $max_size = $cbor->get_max_size
172    
173     Set the maximum length a CBOR string may have (in bytes) where decoding
174     is being attempted. The default is C<0>, meaning no limit. When C<decode>
175     is called on a string that is longer then this many bytes, it will not
176     attempt to decode the string but throw an exception. This setting has no
177     effect on C<encode> (yet).
178    
179     If no argument is given, the limit check will be deactivated (same as when
180     C<0> is specified).
181    
182 root 1.65 See L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS>, below, for more info on why this is useful.
183 root 1.1
184 root 1.19 =item $cbor = $cbor->allow_unknown ([$enable])
185    
186     =item $enabled = $cbor->get_allow_unknown
187    
188     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will I<not> throw an
189     exception when it encounters values it cannot represent in CBOR (for
190     example, filehandles) but instead will encode a CBOR C<error> value.
191    
192     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
193     exception when it encounters anything it cannot encode as CBOR.
194    
195     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way, and it is recommended to
196     leave it off unless you know your communications partner.
197    
198 root 1.20 =item $cbor = $cbor->allow_sharing ([$enable])
199 root 1.19
200 root 1.20 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_allow_sharing
201 root 1.19
202     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will not double-encode
203 root 1.20 values that have been referenced before (e.g. when the same object, such
204     as an array, is referenced multiple times), but instead will emit a
205     reference to the earlier value.
206 root 1.19
207     This means that such values will only be encoded once, and will not result
208     in a deep cloning of the value on decode, in decoders supporting the value
209 root 1.25 sharing extension. This also makes it possible to encode cyclic data
210 root 1.62 structures (which need C<allow_cycles> to be enabled to be decoded by this
211 root 1.31 module).
212 root 1.19
213 root 1.21 It is recommended to leave it off unless you know your
214     communication partner supports the value sharing extensions to CBOR
215 root 1.26 (L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing>), as without decoder support, the
216 root 1.25 resulting data structure might be unusable.
217 root 1.21
218 root 1.19 Detecting shared values incurs a runtime overhead when values are encoded
219     that have a reference counter large than one, and might unnecessarily
220 root 1.69 increase the encoded size, as potentially shared values are encoded as
221 root 1.31 shareable whether or not they are actually shared.
222 root 1.19
223 root 1.20 At the moment, only targets of references can be shared (e.g. scalars,
224     arrays or hashes pointed to by a reference). Weirder constructs, such as
225     an array with multiple "copies" of the I<same> string, which are hard but
226     not impossible to create in Perl, are not supported (this is the same as
227 root 1.25 with L<Storable>).
228 root 1.19
229 root 1.25 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode shared
230     data structures repeatedly, unsharing them in the process. Cyclic data
231     structures cannot be encoded in this mode.
232 root 1.19
233     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way - shared values and
234 root 1.21 references will always be decoded properly if present.
235    
236 root 1.31 =item $cbor = $cbor->allow_cycles ([$enable])
237    
238     =item $enabled = $cbor->get_allow_cycles
239    
240     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<decode> will happily decode
241     self-referential (cyclic) data structures. By default these will not be
242     decoded, as they need manual cleanup to avoid memory leaks, so code that
243     isn't prepared for this will not leak memory.
244    
245     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<decode> will throw an error
246     when it encounters a self-referential/cyclic data structure.
247    
248 root 1.41 FUTURE DIRECTION: the motivation behind this option is to avoid I<real>
249     cycles - future versions of this module might chose to decode cyclic data
250     structures using weak references when this option is off, instead of
251     throwing an error.
252    
253 root 1.31 This option does not affect C<encode> in any way - shared values and
254 root 1.42 references will always be encoded properly if present.
255 root 1.31
256 root 1.65 =item $cbor = $cbor->forbid_objects ([$enable])
257    
258     =item $enabled = $cbor->get_forbid_objects
259    
260     Disables the use of the object serialiser protocol.
261    
262     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will will throw an
263     exception when it encounters perl objects that would be encoded using the
264     perl-object tag (26). When C<decode> encounters such tags, it will fall
265     back to the general filter/tagged logic as if this were an unknown tag (by
266     default resulting in a C<CBOR::XC::Tagged> object).
267    
268     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will use the
269     L<Types::Serialiser> object serialisation protocol to serialise objects
270     into perl-object tags, and C<decode> will do the same to decode such tags.
271    
272     See L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS>, below, for more info on why forbidding this
273     protocol can be useful.
274    
275 root 1.25 =item $cbor = $cbor->pack_strings ([$enable])
276 root 1.21
277 root 1.25 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_pack_strings
278 root 1.21
279     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will try not to encode
280     the same string twice, but will instead encode a reference to the string
281 root 1.25 instead. Depending on your data format, this can save a lot of space, but
282 root 1.21 also results in a very large runtime overhead (expect encoding times to be
283     2-4 times as high as without).
284    
285     It is recommended to leave it off unless you know your
286     communications partner supports the stringref extension to CBOR
287 root 1.26 (L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/stringref>), as without decoder support, the
288 root 1.25 resulting data structure might not be usable.
289 root 1.21
290 root 1.25 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode strings
291     the standard CBOR way.
292 root 1.21
293     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way - string references will
294     always be decoded properly if present.
295 root 1.19
296 root 1.52 =item $cbor = $cbor->text_keys ([$enable])
297    
298     =item $enabled = $cbor->get_text_keys
299    
300     If C<$enabled> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will encode all
301     perl hash keys as CBOR text strings/UTF-8 string, upgrading them as needed.
302    
303     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode hash keys
304     normally - upgraded perl strings (strings internally encoded as UTF-8) as
305     CBOR text strings, and downgraded perl strings as CBOR byte strings.
306    
307     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way.
308    
309     This option is useful for interoperability with CBOR decoders that don't
310     treat byte strings as a form of text. It is especially useful as Perl
311     gives very little control over hash keys.
312    
313     Enabling this option can be slow, as all downgraded hash keys that are
314     encoded need to be scanned and converted to UTF-8.
315    
316     =item $cbor = $cbor->text_strings ([$enable])
317    
318     =item $enabled = $cbor->get_text_strings
319    
320     This option works similar to C<text_keys>, above, but works on all strings
321     (including hash keys), so C<text_keys> has no further effect after
322     enabling C<text_strings>.
323    
324     If C<$enabled> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will encode all perl
325     strings as CBOR text strings/UTF-8 strings, upgrading them as needed.
326    
327     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode strings
328     normally (but see C<text_keys>) - upgraded perl strings (strings
329     internally encoded as UTF-8) as CBOR text strings, and downgraded perl
330     strings as CBOR byte strings.
331    
332     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way.
333    
334     This option has similar advantages and disadvantages as C<text_keys>. In
335 root 1.71 addition, this option effectively removes the ability to automatically
336     encode byte strings, which might break some C<FREEZE> and C<TO_CBOR>
337     methods that rely on this.
338    
339     A workaround is to use explicit type casts, which are unaffected by this option.
340 root 1.52
341 root 1.33 =item $cbor = $cbor->validate_utf8 ([$enable])
342    
343     =item $enabled = $cbor->get_validate_utf8
344    
345     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<decode> will validate that
346     elements (text strings) containing UTF-8 data in fact contain valid UTF-8
347     data (instead of blindly accepting it). This validation obviously takes
348     extra time during decoding.
349    
350     The concept of "valid UTF-8" used is perl's concept, which is a superset
351     of the official UTF-8.
352    
353     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<decode> will blindly accept
354     UTF-8 data, marking them as valid UTF-8 in the resulting data structure
355 root 1.51 regardless of whether that's true or not.
356 root 1.33
357     Perl isn't too happy about corrupted UTF-8 in strings, but should
358     generally not crash or do similarly evil things. Extensions might be not
359     so forgiving, so it's recommended to turn on this setting if you receive
360     untrusted CBOR.
361    
362     This option does not affect C<encode> in any way - strings that are
363     supposedly valid UTF-8 will simply be dumped into the resulting CBOR
364     string without checking whether that is, in fact, true or not.
365    
366 root 1.23 =item $cbor = $cbor->filter ([$cb->($tag, $value)])
367    
368     =item $cb_or_undef = $cbor->get_filter
369    
370 root 1.24 Sets or replaces the tagged value decoding filter (when C<$cb> is
371     specified) or clears the filter (if no argument or C<undef> is provided).
372    
373     The filter callback is called only during decoding, when a non-enforced
374     tagged value has been decoded (see L<TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS> for a
375     list of enforced tags). For specific tags, it's often better to provide a
376     default converter using the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> hash (see below).
377    
378     The first argument is the numerical tag, the second is the (decoded) value
379     that has been tagged.
380    
381     The filter function should return either exactly one value, which will
382     replace the tagged value in the decoded data structure, or no values,
383     which will result in default handling, which currently means the decoder
384     creates a C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> object to hold the tag and the value.
385    
386     When the filter is cleared (the default state), the default filter
387 root 1.65 function, C<CBOR::XS::default_filter>, is used. This function simply
388     looks up the tag in the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> hash. If an entry exists
389     it must be a code reference that is called with tag and value, and is
390     responsible for decoding the value. If no entry exists, it returns no
391     values. C<CBOR::XS> provides a number of default filter functions already,
392     the the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> hash can be freely extended with more.
393    
394     C<CBOR::XS> additionally provides an alternative filter function that is
395     supposed to be safe to use with untrusted data (which the default filter
396     might not), called C<CBOR::XS::safe_filter>, which works the same as
397     the C<default_filter> but uses the C<%CBOR::XS::SAFE_FILTER> variable
398     instead. It is prepopulated with the tag decoding functions that are
399     deemed safe (basically the same as C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> without all
400     the bignum tags), and can be extended by user code as wlel, although,
401     obviously, one should be very careful about adding decoding functions
402     here, since the expectation is that they are safe to use on untrusted
403     data, after all.
404 root 1.24
405 root 1.28 Example: decode all tags not handled internally into C<CBOR::XS::Tagged>
406 root 1.24 objects, with no other special handling (useful when working with
407     potentially "unsafe" CBOR data).
408    
409     CBOR::XS->new->filter (sub { })->decode ($cbor_data);
410    
411     Example: provide a global filter for tag 1347375694, converting the value
412     into some string form.
413    
414     $CBOR::XS::FILTER{1347375694} = sub {
415     my ($tag, $value);
416    
417     "tag 1347375694 value $value"
418     };
419 root 1.23
420 root 1.65 Example: provide your own filter function that looks up tags in your own
421     hash:
422    
423     my %my_filter = (
424     998347484 => sub {
425     my ($tag, $value);
426    
427     "tag 998347484 value $value"
428     };
429     );
430    
431     my $coder = CBOR::XS->new->filter (sub {
432     &{ $my_filter{$_[0]} or return }
433     });
434    
435    
436     Example: use the safe filter function (see L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS> for
437     more considerations on security).
438    
439     CBOR::XS->new->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter)->decode ($cbor_data);
440    
441 root 1.1 =item $cbor_data = $cbor->encode ($perl_scalar)
442    
443     Converts the given Perl data structure (a scalar value) to its CBOR
444     representation.
445    
446     =item $perl_scalar = $cbor->decode ($cbor_data)
447    
448     The opposite of C<encode>: expects CBOR data and tries to parse it,
449     returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
450    
451     =item ($perl_scalar, $octets) = $cbor->decode_prefix ($cbor_data)
452    
453     This works like the C<decode> method, but instead of raising an exception
454     when there is trailing garbage after the CBOR string, it will silently
455     stop parsing there and return the number of characters consumed so far.
456    
457     This is useful if your CBOR texts are not delimited by an outer protocol
458     and you need to know where the first CBOR string ends amd the next one
459 root 1.70 starts - CBOR strings are self-delimited, so it is possible to concatenate
460     CBOR strings without any delimiters or size fields and recover their data.
461 root 1.1
462     CBOR::XS->new->decode_prefix ("......")
463     => ("...", 3)
464    
465     =back
466    
467 root 1.39 =head2 INCREMENTAL PARSING
468    
469     In some cases, there is the need for incremental parsing of JSON
470     texts. While this module always has to keep both CBOR text and resulting
471     Perl data structure in memory at one time, it does allow you to parse a
472     CBOR stream incrementally, using a similar to using "decode_prefix" to see
473     if a full CBOR object is available, but is much more efficient.
474    
475     It basically works by parsing as much of a CBOR string as possible - if
476     the CBOR data is not complete yet, the pasrer will remember where it was,
477     to be able to restart when more data has been accumulated. Once enough
478     data is available to either decode a complete CBOR value or raise an
479     error, a real decode will be attempted.
480    
481     A typical use case would be a network protocol that consists of sending
482     and receiving CBOR-encoded messages. The solution that works with CBOR and
483     about anything else is by prepending a length to every CBOR value, so the
484     receiver knows how many octets to read. More compact (and slightly slower)
485     would be to just send CBOR values back-to-back, as C<CBOR::XS> knows where
486     a CBOR value ends, and doesn't need an explicit length.
487    
488     The following methods help with this:
489    
490     =over 4
491    
492     =item @decoded = $cbor->incr_parse ($buffer)
493    
494     This method attempts to decode exactly one CBOR value from the beginning
495     of the given C<$buffer>. The value is removed from the C<$buffer> on
496     success. When C<$buffer> doesn't contain a complete value yet, it returns
497     nothing. Finally, when the C<$buffer> doesn't start with something
498     that could ever be a valid CBOR value, it raises an exception, just as
499     C<decode> would. In the latter case the decoder state is undefined and
500     must be reset before being able to parse further.
501    
502     This method modifies the C<$buffer> in place. When no CBOR value can be
503     decoded, the decoder stores the current string offset. On the next call,
504     continues decoding at the place where it stopped before. For this to make
505     sense, the C<$buffer> must begin with the same octets as on previous
506     unsuccessful calls.
507    
508     You can call this method in scalar context, in which case it either
509     returns a decoded value or C<undef>. This makes it impossible to
510     distinguish between CBOR null values (which decode to C<undef>) and an
511     unsuccessful decode, which is often acceptable.
512    
513     =item @decoded = $cbor->incr_parse_multiple ($buffer)
514    
515     Same as C<incr_parse>, but attempts to decode as many CBOR values as
516     possible in one go, instead of at most one. Calls to C<incr_parse> and
517     C<incr_parse_multiple> can be interleaved.
518    
519     =item $cbor->incr_reset
520    
521     Resets the incremental decoder. This throws away any saved state, so that
522     subsequent calls to C<incr_parse> or C<incr_parse_multiple> start to parse
523     a new CBOR value from the beginning of the C<$buffer> again.
524    
525 root 1.61 This method can be called at any time, but it I<must> be called if you want
526 root 1.39 to change your C<$buffer> or there was a decoding error and you want to
527     reuse the C<$cbor> object for future incremental parsings.
528    
529     =back
530    
531 root 1.1
532     =head1 MAPPING
533    
534     This section describes how CBOR::XS maps Perl values to CBOR values and
535     vice versa. These mappings are designed to "do the right thing" in most
536     circumstances automatically, preserving round-tripping characteristics
537     (what you put in comes out as something equivalent).
538    
539     For the more enlightened: note that in the following descriptions,
540     lowercase I<perl> refers to the Perl interpreter, while uppercase I<Perl>
541     refers to the abstract Perl language itself.
542    
543    
544     =head2 CBOR -> PERL
545    
546     =over 4
547    
548 root 1.4 =item integers
549    
550     CBOR integers become (numeric) perl scalars. On perls without 64 bit
551     support, 64 bit integers will be truncated or otherwise corrupted.
552    
553     =item byte strings
554    
555 root 1.27 Byte strings will become octet strings in Perl (the Byte values 0..255
556 root 1.4 will simply become characters of the same value in Perl).
557    
558     =item UTF-8 strings
559    
560     UTF-8 strings in CBOR will be decoded, i.e. the UTF-8 octets will be
561     decoded into proper Unicode code points. At the moment, the validity of
562     the UTF-8 octets will not be validated - corrupt input will result in
563     corrupted Perl strings.
564    
565     =item arrays, maps
566    
567     CBOR arrays and CBOR maps will be converted into references to a Perl
568     array or hash, respectively. The keys of the map will be stringified
569     during this process.
570    
571 root 1.6 =item null
572    
573     CBOR null becomes C<undef> in Perl.
574    
575     =item true, false, undefined
576 root 1.1
577 root 1.6 These CBOR values become C<Types:Serialiser::true>,
578     C<Types:Serialiser::false> and C<Types::Serialiser::error>,
579 root 1.1 respectively. They are overloaded to act almost exactly like the numbers
580 root 1.6 C<1> and C<0> (for true and false) or to throw an exception on access (for
581     error). See the L<Types::Serialiser> manpage for details.
582    
583 root 1.23 =item tagged values
584 root 1.1
585 root 1.23 Tagged items consists of a numeric tag and another CBOR value.
586 root 1.4
587 root 1.23 See L<TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS> and the description of C<< ->filter >>
588 root 1.28 for details on which tags are handled how.
589 root 1.4
590     =item anything else
591    
592     Anything else (e.g. unsupported simple values) will raise a decoding
593     error.
594 root 1.1
595     =back
596    
597    
598     =head2 PERL -> CBOR
599    
600     The mapping from Perl to CBOR is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
601 root 1.28 typeless language. That means this module can only guess which CBOR type
602     is meant by a perl value.
603 root 1.1
604     =over 4
605    
606     =item hash references
607    
608 root 1.4 Perl hash references become CBOR maps. As there is no inherent ordering in
609     hash keys (or CBOR maps), they will usually be encoded in a pseudo-random
610 root 1.49 order. This order can be different each time a hash is encoded.
611 root 1.4
612     Currently, tied hashes will use the indefinite-length format, while normal
613     hashes will use the fixed-length format.
614 root 1.1
615     =item array references
616    
617 root 1.4 Perl array references become fixed-length CBOR arrays.
618 root 1.1
619     =item other references
620    
621 root 1.28 Other unblessed references will be represented using
622     the indirection tag extension (tag value C<22098>,
623     L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/indirection>). CBOR decoders are guaranteed
624     to be able to decode these values somehow, by either "doing the right
625     thing", decoding into a generic tagged object, simply ignoring the tag, or
626     something else.
627 root 1.4
628     =item CBOR::XS::Tagged objects
629    
630     Objects of this type must be arrays consisting of a single C<[tag, value]>
631 root 1.13 pair. The (numerical) tag will be encoded as a CBOR tag, the value will
632 root 1.28 be encoded as appropriate for the value. You must use C<CBOR::XS::tag> to
633 root 1.13 create such objects.
634 root 1.1
635 root 1.6 =item Types::Serialiser::true, Types::Serialiser::false, Types::Serialiser::error
636 root 1.1
637 root 1.6 These special values become CBOR true, CBOR false and CBOR undefined
638     values, respectively. You can also use C<\1>, C<\0> and C<\undef> directly
639     if you want.
640 root 1.1
641 root 1.7 =item other blessed objects
642 root 1.1
643 root 1.7 Other blessed objects are serialised via C<TO_CBOR> or C<FREEZE>. See
644 root 1.23 L<TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS> for specific classes handled by this
645     module, and L<OBJECT SERIALISATION> for generic object serialisation.
646 root 1.1
647     =item simple scalars
648    
649     Simple Perl scalars (any scalar that is not a reference) are the most
650     difficult objects to encode: CBOR::XS will encode undefined scalars as
651 root 1.4 CBOR null values, scalars that have last been used in a string context
652 root 1.1 before encoding as CBOR strings, and anything else as number value:
653    
654     # dump as number
655     encode_cbor [2] # yields [2]
656     encode_cbor [-3.0e17] # yields [-3e+17]
657     my $value = 5; encode_cbor [$value] # yields [5]
658    
659 root 1.27 # used as string, so dump as string (either byte or text)
660 root 1.1 print $value;
661     encode_cbor [$value] # yields ["5"]
662    
663     # undef becomes null
664     encode_cbor [undef] # yields [null]
665    
666     You can force the type to be a CBOR string by stringifying it:
667    
668     my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
669     "$x"; # stringified
670     $x .= ""; # another, more awkward way to stringify
671     print $x; # perl does it for you, too, quite often
672    
673 root 1.53 You can force whether a string is encoded as byte or text string by using
674 root 1.71 C<utf8::upgrade> and C<utf8::downgrade> (if C<text_strings> is disabled).
675 root 1.27
676     utf8::upgrade $x; # encode $x as text string
677     utf8::downgrade $x; # encode $x as byte string
678    
679 root 1.71 More options are available, see L<TYPE CASTS>, below, and the C<text_keys>
680     and C<text_strings> options.
681    
682 root 1.27 Perl doesn't define what operations up- and downgrade strings, so if the
683     difference between byte and text is important, you should up- or downgrade
684 root 1.53 your string as late as possible before encoding. You can also force the
685     use of CBOR text strings by using C<text_keys> or C<text_strings>.
686 root 1.27
687 root 1.1 You can force the type to be a CBOR number by numifying it:
688    
689     my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
690     $x += 0; # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
691     $x *= 1; # same thing, the choice is yours.
692    
693     You can not currently force the type in other, less obscure, ways. Tell me
694     if you need this capability (but don't forget to explain why it's needed
695     :).
696    
697 root 1.4 Perl values that seem to be integers generally use the shortest possible
698     representation. Floating-point values will use either the IEEE single
699     format if possible without loss of precision, otherwise the IEEE double
700     format will be used. Perls that use formats other than IEEE double to
701     represent numerical values are supported, but might suffer loss of
702     precision.
703 root 1.1
704     =back
705    
706 root 1.71 =head2 TYPE CASTS
707    
708     B<EXPERIMENTAL>: As an experimental extension, C<CBOR::XS> allows you to
709     force specific cbor types to be used when encoding. That allows you to
710     encode types not normally accessible (e.g. half floats) as well as force
711     string types even when C<text_strings> is in effect.
712    
713     Type forcing is done by calling a special "cast" function which keeps a
714     copy of the value and returns a new value that can be handed over to any
715     CBOR encoder function.
716    
717 root 1.79 The following casts are currently available (all of which are unary
718     operators, that is, have a prototype of C<$>):
719 root 1.71
720     =over
721    
722 root 1.72 =item CBOR::XS::as_int $value
723    
724     Forces the value to be encoded as some form of (basic, not bignum) integer
725     type.
726    
727 root 1.71 =item CBOR::XS::as_text $value
728    
729     Forces the value to be encoded as (UTF-8) text values.
730    
731     =item CBOR::XS::as_bytes $value
732    
733     Forces the value to be encoded as a (binary) string value.
734    
735 root 1.77 Example: encode a perl string as binary even though C<text_strings> is in
736     effect.
737    
738     CBOR::XS->new->text_strings->encode ([4, "text", CBOR::XS::bytes "bytevalue"]);
739    
740 root 1.75 =item CBOR::XS::as_bool $value
741    
742     Converts a Perl boolean (which can be any kind of scalar) into a CBOR
743 root 1.76 boolean. Strictly the same, but shorter to write, than:
744 root 1.75
745     $value ? Types::Serialiser::true : Types::Serialiser::false
746    
747 root 1.71 =item CBOR::XS::as_float16 $value
748    
749     Forces half-float (IEEE 754 binary16) encoding of the given value.
750    
751     =item CBOR::XS::as_float32 $value
752    
753     Forces single-float (IEEE 754 binary32) encoding of the given value.
754    
755     =item CBOR::XS::as_float64 $value
756    
757     Forces double-float (IEEE 754 binary64) encoding of the given value.
758    
759 root 1.77 =item CBOR::XS::as_cbor $cbor_text
760 root 1.71
761 root 1.77 Not a type cast per-se, this type cast forces the argument to eb encoded
762 root 1.71 as-is. This can be used to embed pre-encoded CBOR data.
763    
764     Note that no checking on the validity of the C<$cbor_text> is done - it's
765     the callers responsibility to correctly encode values.
766    
767 root 1.77 =item CBOR::XS::as_map [key => value...]
768    
769     Treat the array reference as key value pairs and output a CBOR map. This
770     allows you to generate CBOR maps with arbitrary key types (or, if you
771     don't care about semantics, duplicate keys or prairs in a custom order),
772     which is otherwise hard to do with Perl.
773    
774     The single argument must be an array reference with an even number of
775     elements.
776    
777     Example: encode a CBOR map with a string and an integer as keys.
778 root 1.71
779 root 1.77 encode_cbor CBOR::XS::as_map [string => "value", 5 => "value"]
780 root 1.71
781 root 1.77 =back
782 root 1.71
783     =cut
784    
785 root 1.74 sub CBOR::XS::as_cbor ($) { bless [$_[0], 0, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
786     sub CBOR::XS::as_int ($) { bless [$_[0], 1, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
787 root 1.72 sub CBOR::XS::as_bytes ($) { bless [$_[0], 2, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
788     sub CBOR::XS::as_text ($) { bless [$_[0], 3, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
789     sub CBOR::XS::as_float16 ($) { bless [$_[0], 4, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
790     sub CBOR::XS::as_float32 ($) { bless [$_[0], 5, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
791     sub CBOR::XS::as_float64 ($) { bless [$_[0], 6, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
792 root 1.71
793 root 1.76 sub CBOR::XS::as_bool ($) { $_[0] ? $Types::Serialiser::true : $Types::Serialiser::false }
794 root 1.75
795 root 1.77 sub CBOR::XS::as_map ($) {
796     ARRAY:: eq ref $_[0]
797     and $#{ $_[0] } & 1
798 root 1.78 or do { require Carp; Carp::croak ("CBOR::XS::as_map only acepts array references with an even number of elements, caught") };
799 root 1.77
800     bless [$_[0], 7, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged::
801     }
802    
803 root 1.7 =head2 OBJECT SERIALISATION
804    
805 root 1.29 This module implements both a CBOR-specific and the generic
806     L<Types::Serialier> object serialisation protocol. The following
807     subsections explain both methods.
808    
809     =head3 ENCODING
810    
811 root 1.7 This module knows two way to serialise a Perl object: The CBOR-specific
812     way, and the generic way.
813    
814 root 1.29 Whenever the encoder encounters a Perl object that it cannot serialise
815 root 1.7 directly (most of them), it will first look up the C<TO_CBOR> method on
816     it.
817    
818     If it has a C<TO_CBOR> method, it will call it with the object as only
819     argument, and expects exactly one return value, which it will then
820     substitute and encode it in the place of the object.
821    
822     Otherwise, it will look up the C<FREEZE> method. If it exists, it will
823     call it with the object as first argument, and the constant string C<CBOR>
824     as the second argument, to distinguish it from other serialisers.
825    
826     The C<FREEZE> method can return any number of values (i.e. zero or
827     more). These will be encoded as CBOR perl object, together with the
828     classname.
829    
830 root 1.29 These methods I<MUST NOT> change the data structure that is being
831     serialised. Failure to comply to this can result in memory corruption -
832     and worse.
833    
834 root 1.7 If an object supports neither C<TO_CBOR> nor C<FREEZE>, encoding will fail
835     with an error.
836    
837 root 1.29 =head3 DECODING
838    
839     Objects encoded via C<TO_CBOR> cannot (normally) be automatically decoded,
840     but objects encoded via C<FREEZE> can be decoded using the following
841     protocol:
842 root 1.7
843     When an encoded CBOR perl object is encountered by the decoder, it will
844     look up the C<THAW> method, by using the stored classname, and will fail
845     if the method cannot be found.
846    
847     After the lookup it will call the C<THAW> method with the stored classname
848     as first argument, the constant string C<CBOR> as second argument, and all
849     values returned by C<FREEZE> as remaining arguments.
850    
851 root 1.29 =head3 EXAMPLES
852 root 1.7
853     Here is an example C<TO_CBOR> method:
854    
855     sub My::Object::TO_CBOR {
856     my ($obj) = @_;
857    
858     ["this is a serialised My::Object object", $obj->{id}]
859     }
860    
861     When a C<My::Object> is encoded to CBOR, it will instead encode a simple
862     array with two members: a string, and the "object id". Decoding this CBOR
863     string will yield a normal perl array reference in place of the object.
864    
865     A more useful and practical example would be a serialisation method for
866     the URI module. CBOR has a custom tag value for URIs, namely 32:
867    
868     sub URI::TO_CBOR {
869     my ($self) = @_;
870     my $uri = "$self"; # stringify uri
871     utf8::upgrade $uri; # make sure it will be encoded as UTF-8 string
872 root 1.28 CBOR::XS::tag 32, "$_[0]"
873 root 1.7 }
874    
875     This will encode URIs as a UTF-8 string with tag 32, which indicates an
876     URI.
877    
878     Decoding such an URI will not (currently) give you an URI object, but
879     instead a CBOR::XS::Tagged object with tag number 32 and the string -
880     exactly what was returned by C<TO_CBOR>.
881    
882     To serialise an object so it can automatically be deserialised, you need
883     to use C<FREEZE> and C<THAW>. To take the URI module as example, this
884     would be a possible implementation:
885    
886     sub URI::FREEZE {
887     my ($self, $serialiser) = @_;
888     "$self" # encode url string
889     }
890    
891     sub URI::THAW {
892     my ($class, $serialiser, $uri) = @_;
893     $class->new ($uri)
894     }
895    
896     Unlike C<TO_CBOR>, multiple values can be returned by C<FREEZE>. For
897     example, a C<FREEZE> method that returns "type", "id" and "variant" values
898     would cause an invocation of C<THAW> with 5 arguments:
899    
900     sub My::Object::FREEZE {
901     my ($self, $serialiser) = @_;
902    
903     ($self->{type}, $self->{id}, $self->{variant})
904     }
905    
906     sub My::Object::THAW {
907     my ($class, $serialiser, $type, $id, $variant) = @_;
908    
909     $class-<new (type => $type, id => $id, variant => $variant)
910     }
911    
912 root 1.1
913 root 1.7 =head1 MAGIC HEADER
914 root 1.3
915     There is no way to distinguish CBOR from other formats
916     programmatically. To make it easier to distinguish CBOR from other
917     formats, the CBOR specification has a special "magic string" that can be
918 root 1.18 prepended to any CBOR string without changing its meaning.
919 root 1.3
920     This string is available as C<$CBOR::XS::MAGIC>. This module does not
921 root 1.18 prepend this string to the CBOR data it generates, but it will ignore it
922 root 1.3 if present, so users can prepend this string as a "file type" indicator as
923     required.
924    
925    
926 root 1.12 =head1 THE CBOR::XS::Tagged CLASS
927    
928     CBOR has the concept of tagged values - any CBOR value can be tagged with
929     a numeric 64 bit number, which are centrally administered.
930    
931     C<CBOR::XS> handles a few tags internally when en- or decoding. You can
932     also create tags yourself by encoding C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects, and the
933     decoder will create C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects itself when it hits an
934     unknown tag.
935    
936     These objects are simply blessed array references - the first member of
937     the array being the numerical tag, the second being the value.
938    
939     You can interact with C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects in the following ways:
940    
941     =over 4
942    
943     =item $tagged = CBOR::XS::tag $tag, $value
944    
945     This function(!) creates a new C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> object using the given
946     C<$tag> (0..2**64-1) to tag the given C<$value> (which can be any Perl
947     value that can be encoded in CBOR, including serialisable Perl objects and
948     C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects).
949    
950     =item $tagged->[0]
951    
952     =item $tagged->[0] = $new_tag
953    
954     =item $tag = $tagged->tag
955    
956     =item $new_tag = $tagged->tag ($new_tag)
957    
958     Access/mutate the tag.
959    
960     =item $tagged->[1]
961    
962     =item $tagged->[1] = $new_value
963    
964     =item $value = $tagged->value
965    
966     =item $new_value = $tagged->value ($new_value)
967    
968     Access/mutate the tagged value.
969    
970     =back
971    
972     =cut
973    
974     sub tag($$) {
975     bless [@_], CBOR::XS::Tagged::;
976     }
977    
978     sub CBOR::XS::Tagged::tag {
979     $_[0][0] = $_[1] if $#_;
980     $_[0][0]
981     }
982    
983     sub CBOR::XS::Tagged::value {
984     $_[0][1] = $_[1] if $#_;
985     $_[0][1]
986     }
987    
988 root 1.13 =head2 EXAMPLES
989    
990     Here are some examples of C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> uses to tag objects.
991    
992     You can look up CBOR tag value and emanings in the IANA registry at
993     L<http://www.iana.org/assignments/cbor-tags/cbor-tags.xhtml>.
994    
995     Prepend a magic header (C<$CBOR::XS::MAGIC>):
996    
997     my $cbor = encode_cbor CBOR::XS::tag 55799, $value;
998     # same as:
999     my $cbor = $CBOR::XS::MAGIC . encode_cbor $value;
1000    
1001     Serialise some URIs and a regex in an array:
1002    
1003     my $cbor = encode_cbor [
1004     (CBOR::XS::tag 32, "http://www.nethype.de/"),
1005     (CBOR::XS::tag 32, "http://software.schmorp.de/"),
1006     (CBOR::XS::tag 35, "^[Pp][Ee][Rr][lL]\$"),
1007     ];
1008    
1009     Wrap CBOR data in CBOR:
1010    
1011     my $cbor_cbor = encode_cbor
1012     CBOR::XS::tag 24,
1013     encode_cbor [1, 2, 3];
1014    
1015 root 1.19 =head1 TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS
1016    
1017 root 1.22 This section describes how this module handles specific tagged values
1018     and extensions. If a tag is not mentioned here and no additional filters
1019     are provided for it, then the default handling applies (creating a
1020     CBOR::XS::Tagged object on decoding, and only encoding the tag when
1021     explicitly requested).
1022 root 1.19
1023 root 1.23 Tags not handled specifically are currently converted into a
1024     L<CBOR::XS::Tagged> object, which is simply a blessed array reference
1025     consisting of the numeric tag value followed by the (decoded) CBOR value.
1026    
1027 root 1.19 Future versions of this module reserve the right to special case
1028 root 1.22 additional tags (such as base64url).
1029    
1030     =head2 ENFORCED TAGS
1031    
1032     These tags are always handled when decoding, and their handling cannot be
1033 root 1.51 overridden by the user.
1034 root 1.19
1035     =over 4
1036    
1037 root 1.26 =item 26 (perl-object, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/perl-object>)
1038 root 1.19
1039 root 1.23 These tags are automatically created (and decoded) for serialisable
1040     objects using the C<FREEZE/THAW> methods (the L<Types::Serialier> object
1041     serialisation protocol). See L<OBJECT SERIALISATION> for details.
1042 root 1.19
1043 root 1.45 =item 28, 29 (shareable, sharedref, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing>)
1044 root 1.19
1045 root 1.31 These tags are automatically decoded when encountered (and they do not
1046     result in a cyclic data structure, see C<allow_cycles>), resulting in
1047 root 1.19 shared values in the decoded object. They are only encoded, however, when
1048 root 1.31 C<allow_sharing> is enabled.
1049    
1050     Not all shared values can be successfully decoded: values that reference
1051     themselves will I<currently> decode as C<undef> (this is not the same
1052     as a reference pointing to itself, which will be represented as a value
1053     that contains an indirect reference to itself - these will be decoded
1054     properly).
1055    
1056     Note that considerably more shared value data structures can be decoded
1057     than will be encoded - currently, only values pointed to by references
1058     will be shared, others will not. While non-reference shared values can be
1059     generated in Perl with some effort, they were considered too unimportant
1060     to be supported in the encoder. The decoder, however, will decode these
1061     values as shared values.
1062 root 1.19
1063 root 1.45 =item 256, 25 (stringref-namespace, stringref, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/stringref>)
1064 root 1.21
1065     These tags are automatically decoded when encountered. They are only
1066 root 1.25 encoded, however, when C<pack_strings> is enabled.
1067 root 1.21
1068 root 1.19 =item 22098 (indirection, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/indirection>)
1069    
1070     This tag is automatically generated when a reference are encountered (with
1071 root 1.51 the exception of hash and array references). It is converted to a reference
1072 root 1.19 when decoding.
1073    
1074     =item 55799 (self-describe CBOR, RFC 7049)
1075    
1076     This value is not generated on encoding (unless explicitly requested by
1077     the user), and is simply ignored when decoding.
1078    
1079     =back
1080    
1081 root 1.24 =head2 NON-ENFORCED TAGS
1082 root 1.22
1083     These tags have default filters provided when decoding. Their handling can
1084 root 1.51 be overridden by changing the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> entry for the tag, or by
1085 root 1.24 providing a custom C<filter> callback when decoding.
1086 root 1.22
1087     When they result in decoding into a specific Perl class, the module
1088     usually provides a corresponding C<TO_CBOR> method as well.
1089    
1090     When any of these need to load additional modules that are not part of the
1091     perl core distribution (e.g. L<URI>), it is (currently) up to the user to
1092     provide these modules. The decoding usually fails with an exception if the
1093     required module cannot be loaded.
1094    
1095     =over 4
1096    
1097 root 1.35 =item 0, 1 (date/time string, seconds since the epoch)
1098    
1099     These tags are decoded into L<Time::Piece> objects. The corresponding
1100     C<Time::Piece::TO_CBOR> method always encodes into tag 1 values currently.
1101    
1102     The L<Time::Piece> API is generally surprisingly bad, and fractional
1103     seconds are only accidentally kept intact, so watch out. On the plus side,
1104     the module comes with perl since 5.10, which has to count for something.
1105    
1106 root 1.22 =item 2, 3 (positive/negative bignum)
1107    
1108     These tags are decoded into L<Math::BigInt> objects. The corresponding
1109     C<Math::BigInt::TO_CBOR> method encodes "small" bigints into normal CBOR
1110     integers, and others into positive/negative CBOR bignums.
1111    
1112 root 1.55 =item 4, 5, 264, 265 (decimal fraction/bigfloat)
1113 root 1.22
1114     Both decimal fractions and bigfloats are decoded into L<Math::BigFloat>
1115     objects. The corresponding C<Math::BigFloat::TO_CBOR> method I<always>
1116 root 1.55 encodes into a decimal fraction (either tag 4 or 264).
1117 root 1.22
1118 root 1.55 NaN and infinities are not encoded properly, as they cannot be represented
1119     in CBOR.
1120 root 1.22
1121 root 1.55 See L<BIGNUM SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS> for more info.
1122 root 1.22
1123 root 1.58 =item 30 (rational numbers)
1124    
1125     These tags are decoded into L<Math::BigRat> objects. The corresponding
1126     C<Math::BigRat::TO_CBOR> method encodes rational numbers with denominator
1127     C<1> via their numerator only, i.e., they become normal integers or
1128     C<bignums>.
1129    
1130     See L<BIGNUM SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS> for more info.
1131    
1132 root 1.22 =item 21, 22, 23 (expected later JSON conversion)
1133    
1134     CBOR::XS is not a CBOR-to-JSON converter, and will simply ignore these
1135     tags.
1136    
1137     =item 32 (URI)
1138    
1139     These objects decode into L<URI> objects. The corresponding
1140     C<URI::TO_CBOR> method again results in a CBOR URI value.
1141    
1142     =back
1143    
1144     =cut
1145    
1146 root 1.7 =head1 CBOR and JSON
1147 root 1.1
1148 root 1.4 CBOR is supposed to implement a superset of the JSON data model, and is,
1149     with some coercion, able to represent all JSON texts (something that other
1150     "binary JSON" formats such as BSON generally do not support).
1151    
1152     CBOR implements some extra hints and support for JSON interoperability,
1153     and the spec offers further guidance for conversion between CBOR and
1154     JSON. None of this is currently implemented in CBOR, and the guidelines
1155     in the spec do not result in correct round-tripping of data. If JSON
1156     interoperability is improved in the future, then the goal will be to
1157     ensure that decoded JSON data will round-trip encoding and decoding to
1158     CBOR intact.
1159 root 1.1
1160    
1161     =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1162    
1163 root 1.65 Tl;dr... if you want to decode or encode CBOR from untrusted sources, you
1164 root 1.69 should start with a coder object created via C<new_safe> (which implements
1165     the mitigations explained below):
1166 root 1.65
1167     my $coder = CBOR::XS->new_safe;
1168 root 1.1
1169 root 1.65 my $data = $coder->decode ($cbor_text);
1170     my $cbor = $coder->encode ($data);
1171    
1172     Longer version: When you are using CBOR in a protocol, talking to
1173     untrusted potentially hostile creatures requires some thought:
1174    
1175     =over 4
1176    
1177     =item Security of the CBOR decoder itself
1178    
1179     First and foremost, your CBOR decoder should be secure, that is, should
1180     not have any buffer overflows or similar bugs that could potentially be
1181     exploited. Obviously, this module should ensure that and I am trying hard
1182     on making that true, but you never know.
1183    
1184     =item CBOR::XS can invoke almost arbitrary callbacks during decoding
1185    
1186     CBOR::XS supports object serialisation - decoding CBOR can cause calls
1187     to I<any> C<THAW> method in I<any> package that exists in your process
1188     (that is, CBOR::XS will not try to load modules, but any existing C<THAW>
1189     method or function can be called, so they all have to be secure).
1190    
1191     Less obviously, it will also invoke C<TO_CBOR> and C<FREEZE> methods -
1192     even if all your C<THAW> methods are secure, encoding data structures from
1193     untrusted sources can invoke those and trigger bugs in those.
1194    
1195     So, if you are not sure about the security of all the modules you
1196     have loaded (you shouldn't), you should disable this part using
1197 root 1.69 C<forbid_objects> or using C<new_safe>.
1198 root 1.65
1199     =item CBOR can be extended with tags that call library code
1200    
1201     CBOR can be extended with tags, and C<CBOR::XS> has a registry of
1202     conversion functions for many existing tags that can be extended via
1203     third-party modules (see the C<filter> method).
1204    
1205     If you don't trust these, you should configure the "safe" filter function,
1206 root 1.69 C<CBOR::XS::safe_filter> (C<new_safe> does this), which by default only
1207     includes conversion functions that are considered "safe" by the author
1208     (but again, they can be extended by third party modules).
1209 root 1.65
1210     Depending on your level of paranoia, you can use the "safe" filter:
1211    
1212     $cbor->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter);
1213    
1214     ... your own filter...
1215    
1216     $cbor->filter (sub { ... do your stuffs here ... });
1217    
1218     ... or even no filter at all, disabling all tag decoding:
1219    
1220     $cbor->filter (sub { });
1221    
1222     This is never a problem for encoding, as the tag mechanism only exists in
1223     CBOR texts.
1224    
1225     =item Resource-starving attacks: object memory usage
1226    
1227     You need to avoid resource-starving attacks. That means you should limit
1228     the size of CBOR data you accept, or make sure then when your resources
1229     run out, that's just fine (e.g. by using a separate process that can
1230     crash safely). The size of a CBOR string in octets is usually a good
1231 root 1.1 indication of the size of the resources required to decode it into a Perl
1232 root 1.65 structure. While CBOR::XS can check the size of the CBOR text (using
1233 root 1.69 C<max_size> - done by C<new_safe>), it might be too late when you already
1234     have it in memory, so you might want to check the size before you accept
1235     the string.
1236 root 1.65
1237     As for encoding, it is possible to construct data structures that are
1238     relatively small but result in large CBOR texts (for example by having an
1239     array full of references to the same big data structure, which will all be
1240     deep-cloned during encoding by default). This is rarely an actual issue
1241     (and the worst case is still just running out of memory), but you can
1242     reduce this risk by using C<allow_sharing>.
1243    
1244     =item Resource-starving attacks: stack overflows
1245    
1246     CBOR::XS recurses using the C stack when decoding objects and arrays. The
1247     C stack is a limited resource: for instance, on my amd64 machine with 8MB
1248     of stack size I can decode around 180k nested arrays but only 14k nested
1249     CBOR objects (due to perl itself recursing deeply on croak to free the
1250     temporary). If that is exceeded, the program crashes. To be conservative,
1251     the default nesting limit is set to 512. If your process has a smaller
1252     stack, you should adjust this setting accordingly with the C<max_depth>
1253     method.
1254    
1255     =item Resource-starving attacks: CPU en-/decoding complexity
1256    
1257     CBOR::XS will use the L<Math::BigInt>, L<Math::BigFloat> and
1258 root 1.69 L<Math::BigRat> libraries to represent encode/decode bignums. These can be
1259     very slow (as in, centuries of CPU time) and can even crash your program
1260     (and are generally not very trustworthy). See the next section on bignum
1261     security for details.
1262 root 1.65
1263     =item Data breaches: leaking information in error messages
1264    
1265     CBOR::XS might leak contents of your Perl data structures in its error
1266     messages, so when you serialise sensitive information you might want to
1267     make sure that exceptions thrown by CBOR::XS will not end up in front of
1268     untrusted eyes.
1269    
1270     =item Something else...
1271 root 1.1
1272     Something else could bomb you, too, that I forgot to think of. In that
1273     case, you get to keep the pieces. I am always open for hints, though...
1274    
1275 root 1.65 =back
1276 root 1.1
1277 root 1.55
1278     =head1 BIGNUM SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1279    
1280     CBOR::XS provides a C<TO_CBOR> method for both L<Math::BigInt> and
1281     L<Math::BigFloat> that tries to encode the number in the simplest possible
1282     way, that is, either a CBOR integer, a CBOR bigint/decimal fraction (tag
1283 root 1.58 4) or an arbitrary-exponent decimal fraction (tag 264). Rational numbers
1284     (L<Math::BigRat>, tag 30) can also contain bignums as members.
1285 root 1.55
1286 root 1.58 CBOR::XS will also understand base-2 bigfloat or arbitrary-exponent
1287     bigfloats (tags 5 and 265), but it will never generate these on its own.
1288 root 1.55
1289     Using the built-in L<Math::BigInt::Calc> support, encoding and decoding
1290     decimal fractions is generally fast. Decoding bigints can be slow for very
1291 root 1.58 big numbers (tens of thousands of digits, something that could potentially
1292     be caught by limiting the size of CBOR texts), and decoding bigfloats or
1293     arbitrary-exponent bigfloats can be I<extremely> slow (minutes, decades)
1294     for large exponents (roughly 40 bit and longer).
1295 root 1.55
1296     Additionally, L<Math::BigInt> can take advantage of other bignum
1297 root 1.58 libraries, such as L<Math::GMP>, which cannot handle big floats with large
1298     exponents, and might simply abort or crash your program, due to their code
1299     quality.
1300 root 1.55
1301     This can be a concern if you want to parse untrusted CBOR. If it is, you
1302 root 1.58 might want to disable decoding of tag 2 (bigint) and 3 (negative bigint)
1303     types. You should also disable types 5 and 265, as these can be slow even
1304     without bigints.
1305    
1306     Disabling bigints will also partially or fully disable types that rely on
1307     them, e.g. rational numbers that use bignums.
1308 root 1.55
1309    
1310 root 1.1 =head1 CBOR IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
1311    
1312     This section contains some random implementation notes. They do not
1313     describe guaranteed behaviour, but merely behaviour as-is implemented
1314     right now.
1315    
1316     64 bit integers are only properly decoded when Perl was built with 64 bit
1317     support.
1318    
1319     Strings and arrays are encoded with a definite length. Hashes as well,
1320     unless they are tied (or otherwise magical).
1321    
1322     Only the double data type is supported for NV data types - when Perl uses
1323     long double to represent floating point values, they might not be encoded
1324     properly. Half precision types are accepted, but not encoded.
1325    
1326     Strict mode and canonical mode are not implemented.
1327    
1328    
1329 root 1.30 =head1 LIMITATIONS ON PERLS WITHOUT 64-BIT INTEGER SUPPORT
1330    
1331     On perls that were built without 64 bit integer support (these are rare
1332 root 1.43 nowadays, even on 32 bit architectures, as all major Perl distributions
1333     are built with 64 bit integer support), support for any kind of 64 bit
1334 root 1.71 value in CBOR is very limited - most likely, these 64 bit values will
1335 root 1.30 be truncated, corrupted, or otherwise not decoded correctly. This also
1336 root 1.71 includes string, float, array and map sizes that are stored as 64 bit
1337     integers.
1338 root 1.30
1339    
1340 root 1.1 =head1 THREADS
1341    
1342     This module is I<not> guaranteed to be thread safe and there are no
1343     plans to change this until Perl gets thread support (as opposed to the
1344     horribly slow so-called "threads" which are simply slow and bloated
1345     process simulations - use fork, it's I<much> faster, cheaper, better).
1346    
1347     (It might actually work, but you have been warned).
1348    
1349    
1350     =head1 BUGS
1351    
1352     While the goal of this module is to be correct, that unfortunately does
1353     not mean it's bug-free, only that I think its design is bug-free. If you
1354     keep reporting bugs they will be fixed swiftly, though.
1355    
1356     Please refrain from using rt.cpan.org or any other bug reporting
1357     service. I put the contact address into my modules for a reason.
1358    
1359     =cut
1360    
1361 root 1.65 # clumsy and slow hv_store-in-hash helper function
1362 root 1.64 sub _hv_store {
1363     $_[0]{$_[1]} = $_[2];
1364     }
1365    
1366 root 1.22 our %FILTER = (
1367 root 1.35 0 => sub { # rfc4287 datetime, utf-8
1368     require Time::Piece;
1369     # Time::Piece::Strptime uses the "incredibly flexible date parsing routine"
1370     # from FreeBSD, which can't parse ISO 8601, RFC3339, RFC4287 or much of anything
1371     # else either. Whats incredibe over standard strptime totally escapes me.
1372     # doesn't do fractional times, either. sigh.
1373 root 1.36 # In fact, it's all a lie, it uses whatever strptime it wants, and of course,
1374 root 1.47 # they are all incompatible. The openbsd one simply ignores %z (but according to the
1375 root 1.37 # docs, it would be much more incredibly flexible indeed. If it worked, that is.).
1376 root 1.35 scalar eval {
1377     my $s = $_[1];
1378    
1379     $s =~ s/Z$/+00:00/;
1380 root 1.36 $s =~ s/(\.[0-9]+)?([+-][0-9][0-9]):([0-9][0-9])$//
1381 root 1.35 or die;
1382    
1383 root 1.36 my $b = $1 - ($2 * 60 + $3) * 60; # fractional part + offset. hopefully
1384     my $d = Time::Piece->strptime ($s, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S");
1385 root 1.35
1386 root 1.36 Time::Piece::gmtime ($d->epoch + $b)
1387 root 1.35 } || die "corrupted CBOR date/time string ($_[0])";
1388     },
1389    
1390     1 => sub { # seconds since the epoch, possibly fractional
1391     require Time::Piece;
1392     scalar Time::Piece::gmtime (pop)
1393     },
1394 root 1.22
1395     2 => sub { # pos bigint
1396     require Math::BigInt;
1397 root 1.57 Math::BigInt->new ("0x" . unpack "H*", pop)
1398 root 1.22 },
1399    
1400     3 => sub { # neg bigint
1401     require Math::BigInt;
1402 root 1.57 -Math::BigInt->new ("0x" . unpack "H*", pop)
1403 root 1.22 },
1404    
1405     4 => sub { # decimal fraction, array
1406     require Math::BigFloat;
1407     Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1] . "E" . $_[1][0])
1408     },
1409    
1410 root 1.58 264 => sub { # decimal fraction with arbitrary exponent
1411     require Math::BigFloat;
1412     Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1] . "E" . $_[1][0])
1413     },
1414    
1415 root 1.22 5 => sub { # bigfloat, array
1416     require Math::BigFloat;
1417 root 1.50 scalar Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1]) * Math::BigFloat->new (2)->bpow ($_[1][0])
1418 root 1.22 },
1419    
1420 root 1.58 265 => sub { # bigfloat with arbitrary exponent
1421     require Math::BigFloat;
1422     scalar Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1]) * Math::BigFloat->new (2)->bpow ($_[1][0])
1423     },
1424    
1425     30 => sub { # rational number
1426     require Math::BigRat;
1427     Math::BigRat->new ("$_[1][0]/$_[1][1]") # separate parameters only work in recent versons
1428     },
1429    
1430 root 1.22 21 => sub { pop }, # expected conversion to base64url encoding
1431     22 => sub { pop }, # expected conversion to base64 encoding
1432     23 => sub { pop }, # expected conversion to base16 encoding
1433    
1434     # 24 # embedded cbor, byte string
1435    
1436     32 => sub {
1437     require URI;
1438     URI->new (pop)
1439     },
1440    
1441     # 33 # base64url rfc4648, utf-8
1442     # 34 # base64 rfc46484, utf-8
1443     # 35 # regex pcre/ecma262, utf-8
1444     # 36 # mime message rfc2045, utf-8
1445     );
1446    
1447 root 1.65 sub default_filter {
1448 root 1.22 &{ $FILTER{$_[0]} or return }
1449     }
1450    
1451 root 1.65 our %SAFE_FILTER = map { $_ => $FILTER{$_} } 0, 1, 21, 22, 23, 32;
1452    
1453     sub safe_filter {
1454     &{ $SAFE_FILTER{$_[0]} or return }
1455     }
1456    
1457 root 1.22 sub URI::TO_CBOR {
1458     my $uri = $_[0]->as_string;
1459     utf8::upgrade $uri;
1460 root 1.35 tag 32, $uri
1461 root 1.22 }
1462    
1463     sub Math::BigInt::TO_CBOR {
1464 root 1.55 if (-2147483648 <= $_[0] && $_[0] <= 2147483647) {
1465 root 1.22 $_[0]->numify
1466     } else {
1467     my $hex = substr $_[0]->as_hex, 2;
1468     $hex = "0$hex" if 1 & length $hex; # sigh
1469 root 1.35 tag $_[0] >= 0 ? 2 : 3, pack "H*", $hex
1470 root 1.22 }
1471     }
1472    
1473     sub Math::BigFloat::TO_CBOR {
1474     my ($m, $e) = $_[0]->parts;
1475 root 1.55
1476     -9223372036854775808 <= $e && $e <= 18446744073709551615
1477     ? tag 4, [$e->numify, $m]
1478     : tag 264, [$e, $m]
1479 root 1.35 }
1480    
1481 root 1.58 sub Math::BigRat::TO_CBOR {
1482     my ($n, $d) = $_[0]->parts;
1483    
1484 root 1.60 # older versions of BigRat need *1, as they not always return numbers
1485 root 1.59
1486     $d*1 == 1
1487     ? $n*1
1488     : tag 30, [$n*1, $d*1]
1489 root 1.58 }
1490    
1491 root 1.35 sub Time::Piece::TO_CBOR {
1492 root 1.40 tag 1, 0 + $_[0]->epoch
1493 root 1.22 }
1494    
1495 root 1.1 XSLoader::load "CBOR::XS", $VERSION;
1496    
1497     =head1 SEE ALSO
1498    
1499     The L<JSON> and L<JSON::XS> modules that do similar, but human-readable,
1500     serialisation.
1501    
1502 root 1.6 The L<Types::Serialiser> module provides the data model for true, false
1503     and error values.
1504    
1505 root 1.1 =head1 AUTHOR
1506    
1507     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1508     http://home.schmorp.de/
1509    
1510     =cut
1511    
1512 root 1.6 1
1513