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Revision: 1.87
Committed: Mon Dec 19 20:31:33 2022 UTC (16 months, 4 weeks ago) by root
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# Content
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 $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
29 =head1 DESCRIPTION
30
31 This module converts Perl data structures to the Concise Binary Object
32 Representation (CBOR) and vice versa. CBOR is a fast binary serialisation
33 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
37 In short, CBOR is a faster and quite compact binary alternative to JSON,
38 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 data later and speed is less important you might want to compare both
41 formats first).
42
43 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 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 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 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
60 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 our $VERSION = 1.86;
70 our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
71
72 our @EXPORT = qw(encode_cbor decode_cbor);
73
74 use Exporter;
75 use XSLoader;
76
77 use Types::Serialiser;
78
79 our $MAGIC = "\xd9\xd9\xf7";
80
81 =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 =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 ->validate_utf8
127 ->forbid_objects
128 ->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter)
129 ->max_size (1e8);
130
131 But is more future proof (it is better to crash because of a change than
132 to be exploited in other ways).
133
134 =cut
135
136 sub new_safe {
137 CBOR::XS
138 ->new
139 ->validate_utf8
140 ->forbid_objects
141 ->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter)
142 ->max_size (1e8)
143 }
144
145 =item $cbor = $cbor->max_depth ([$maximum_nesting_depth])
146
147 =item $max_depth = $cbor->get_max_depth
148
149 Sets the maximum nesting level (default C<512>) accepted while encoding
150 or decoding. If a higher nesting level is detected in CBOR data or a Perl
151 data structure, then the encoder and decoder will stop and croak at that
152 point.
153
154 Nesting level is defined by number of hash- or arrayrefs that the encoder
155 needs to traverse to reach a given point or the number of C<{> or C<[>
156 characters without their matching closing parenthesis crossed to reach a
157 given character in a string.
158
159 Setting the maximum depth to one disallows any nesting, so that ensures
160 that the object is only a single hash/object or array.
161
162 If no argument is given, the highest possible setting will be used, which
163 is rarely useful.
164
165 Note that nesting is implemented by recursion in C. The default value has
166 been chosen to be as large as typical operating systems allow without
167 crashing.
168
169 See L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS>, below, for more info on why this is useful.
170
171 =item $cbor = $cbor->max_size ([$maximum_string_size])
172
173 =item $max_size = $cbor->get_max_size
174
175 Set the maximum length a CBOR string may have (in bytes) where decoding
176 is being attempted. The default is C<0>, meaning no limit. When C<decode>
177 is called on a string that is longer then this many bytes, it will not
178 attempt to decode the string but throw an exception. This setting has no
179 effect on C<encode> (yet).
180
181 If no argument is given, the limit check will be deactivated (same as when
182 C<0> is specified).
183
184 See L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS>, below, for more info on why this is useful.
185
186 =item $cbor = $cbor->allow_unknown ([$enable])
187
188 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_allow_unknown
189
190 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will I<not> throw an
191 exception when it encounters values it cannot represent in CBOR (for
192 example, filehandles) but instead will encode a CBOR C<error> value.
193
194 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
195 exception when it encounters anything it cannot encode as CBOR.
196
197 This option does not affect C<decode> in any way, and it is recommended to
198 leave it off unless you know your communications partner.
199
200 =item $cbor = $cbor->allow_sharing ([$enable])
201
202 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_allow_sharing
203
204 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will not double-encode
205 values that have been referenced before (e.g. when the same object, such
206 as an array, is referenced multiple times), but instead will emit a
207 reference to the earlier value.
208
209 This means that such values will only be encoded once, and will not result
210 in a deep cloning of the value on decode, in decoders supporting the value
211 sharing extension. This also makes it possible to encode cyclic data
212 structures (which need C<allow_cycles> to be enabled to be decoded by this
213 module).
214
215 It is recommended to leave it off unless you know your
216 communication partner supports the value sharing extensions to CBOR
217 (L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing>), as without decoder support, the
218 resulting data structure might be unusable.
219
220 Detecting shared values incurs a runtime overhead when values are encoded
221 that have a reference counter large than one, and might unnecessarily
222 increase the encoded size, as potentially shared values are encoded as
223 shareable whether or not they are actually shared.
224
225 At the moment, only targets of references can be shared (e.g. scalars,
226 arrays or hashes pointed to by a reference). Weirder constructs, such as
227 an array with multiple "copies" of the I<same> string, which are hard but
228 not impossible to create in Perl, are not supported (this is the same as
229 with L<Storable>).
230
231 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode shared
232 data structures repeatedly, unsharing them in the process. Cyclic data
233 structures cannot be encoded in this mode.
234
235 This option does not affect C<decode> in any way - shared values and
236 references will always be decoded properly if present.
237
238 =item $cbor = $cbor->allow_cycles ([$enable])
239
240 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_allow_cycles
241
242 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<decode> will happily decode
243 self-referential (cyclic) data structures. By default these will not be
244 decoded, as they need manual cleanup to avoid memory leaks, so code that
245 isn't prepared for this will not leak memory.
246
247 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<decode> will throw an error
248 when it encounters a self-referential/cyclic data structure.
249
250 FUTURE DIRECTION: the motivation behind this option is to avoid I<real>
251 cycles - future versions of this module might chose to decode cyclic data
252 structures using weak references when this option is off, instead of
253 throwing an error.
254
255 This option does not affect C<encode> in any way - shared values and
256 references will always be encoded properly if present.
257
258 =item $cbor = $cbor->forbid_objects ([$enable])
259
260 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_forbid_objects
261
262 Disables the use of the object serialiser protocol.
263
264 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will will throw an
265 exception when it encounters perl objects that would be encoded using the
266 perl-object tag (26). When C<decode> encounters such tags, it will fall
267 back to the general filter/tagged logic as if this were an unknown tag (by
268 default resulting in a C<CBOR::XC::Tagged> object).
269
270 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will use the
271 L<Types::Serialiser> object serialisation protocol to serialise objects
272 into perl-object tags, and C<decode> will do the same to decode such tags.
273
274 See L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS>, below, for more info on why forbidding this
275 protocol can be useful.
276
277 =item $cbor = $cbor->pack_strings ([$enable])
278
279 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_pack_strings
280
281 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will try not to encode
282 the same string twice, but will instead encode a reference to the string
283 instead. Depending on your data format, this can save a lot of space, but
284 also results in a very large runtime overhead (expect encoding times to be
285 2-4 times as high as without).
286
287 It is recommended to leave it off unless you know your
288 communications partner supports the stringref extension to CBOR
289 (L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/stringref>), as without decoder support, the
290 resulting data structure might not be usable.
291
292 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode strings
293 the standard CBOR way.
294
295 This option does not affect C<decode> in any way - string references will
296 always be decoded properly if present.
297
298 =item $cbor = $cbor->text_keys ([$enable])
299
300 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_text_keys
301
302 If C<$enabled> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will encode all
303 perl hash keys as CBOR text strings/UTF-8 string, upgrading them as needed.
304
305 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode hash keys
306 normally - upgraded perl strings (strings internally encoded as UTF-8) as
307 CBOR text strings, and downgraded perl strings as CBOR byte strings.
308
309 This option does not affect C<decode> in any way.
310
311 This option is useful for interoperability with CBOR decoders that don't
312 treat byte strings as a form of text. It is especially useful as Perl
313 gives very little control over hash keys.
314
315 Enabling this option can be slow, as all downgraded hash keys that are
316 encoded need to be scanned and converted to UTF-8.
317
318 =item $cbor = $cbor->text_strings ([$enable])
319
320 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_text_strings
321
322 This option works similar to C<text_keys>, above, but works on all strings
323 (including hash keys), so C<text_keys> has no further effect after
324 enabling C<text_strings>.
325
326 If C<$enabled> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will encode all perl
327 strings as CBOR text strings/UTF-8 strings, upgrading them as needed.
328
329 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will encode strings
330 normally (but see C<text_keys>) - upgraded perl strings (strings
331 internally encoded as UTF-8) as CBOR text strings, and downgraded perl
332 strings as CBOR byte strings.
333
334 This option does not affect C<decode> in any way.
335
336 This option has similar advantages and disadvantages as C<text_keys>. In
337 addition, this option effectively removes the ability to automatically
338 encode byte strings, which might break some C<FREEZE> and C<TO_CBOR>
339 methods that rely on this.
340
341 A workaround is to use explicit type casts, which are unaffected by this option.
342
343 =item $cbor = $cbor->validate_utf8 ([$enable])
344
345 =item $enabled = $cbor->get_validate_utf8
346
347 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<decode> will validate that
348 elements (text strings) containing UTF-8 data in fact contain valid UTF-8
349 data (instead of blindly accepting it). This validation obviously takes
350 extra time during decoding.
351
352 The concept of "valid UTF-8" used is perl's concept, which is a superset
353 of the official UTF-8.
354
355 If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<decode> will blindly accept
356 UTF-8 data, marking them as valid UTF-8 in the resulting data structure
357 regardless of whether that's true or not.
358
359 Perl isn't too happy about corrupted UTF-8 in strings, but should
360 generally not crash or do similarly evil things. Extensions might be not
361 so forgiving, so it's recommended to turn on this setting if you receive
362 untrusted CBOR.
363
364 This option does not affect C<encode> in any way - strings that are
365 supposedly valid UTF-8 will simply be dumped into the resulting CBOR
366 string without checking whether that is, in fact, true or not.
367
368 =item $cbor = $cbor->filter ([$cb->($tag, $value)])
369
370 =item $cb_or_undef = $cbor->get_filter
371
372 Sets or replaces the tagged value decoding filter (when C<$cb> is
373 specified) or clears the filter (if no argument or C<undef> is provided).
374
375 The filter callback is called only during decoding, when a non-enforced
376 tagged value has been decoded (see L<TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS> for a
377 list of enforced tags). For specific tags, it's often better to provide a
378 default converter using the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> hash (see below).
379
380 The first argument is the numerical tag, the second is the (decoded) value
381 that has been tagged.
382
383 The filter function should return either exactly one value, which will
384 replace the tagged value in the decoded data structure, or no values,
385 which will result in default handling, which currently means the decoder
386 creates a C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> object to hold the tag and the value.
387
388 When the filter is cleared (the default state), the default filter
389 function, C<CBOR::XS::default_filter>, is used. This function simply
390 looks up the tag in the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> hash. If an entry exists
391 it must be a code reference that is called with tag and value, and is
392 responsible for decoding the value. If no entry exists, it returns no
393 values. C<CBOR::XS> provides a number of default filter functions already,
394 the the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> hash can be freely extended with more.
395
396 C<CBOR::XS> additionally provides an alternative filter function that is
397 supposed to be safe to use with untrusted data (which the default filter
398 might not), called C<CBOR::XS::safe_filter>, which works the same as
399 the C<default_filter> but uses the C<%CBOR::XS::SAFE_FILTER> variable
400 instead. It is prepopulated with the tag decoding functions that are
401 deemed safe (basically the same as C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> without all
402 the bignum tags), and can be extended by user code as wlel, although,
403 obviously, one should be very careful about adding decoding functions
404 here, since the expectation is that they are safe to use on untrusted
405 data, after all.
406
407 Example: decode all tags not handled internally into C<CBOR::XS::Tagged>
408 objects, with no other special handling (useful when working with
409 potentially "unsafe" CBOR data).
410
411 CBOR::XS->new->filter (sub { })->decode ($cbor_data);
412
413 Example: provide a global filter for tag 1347375694, converting the value
414 into some string form.
415
416 $CBOR::XS::FILTER{1347375694} = sub {
417 my ($tag, $value);
418
419 "tag 1347375694 value $value"
420 };
421
422 Example: provide your own filter function that looks up tags in your own
423 hash:
424
425 my %my_filter = (
426 998347484 => sub {
427 my ($tag, $value);
428
429 "tag 998347484 value $value"
430 };
431 );
432
433 my $coder = CBOR::XS->new->filter (sub {
434 &{ $my_filter{$_[0]} or return }
435 });
436
437
438 Example: use the safe filter function (see L<SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS> for
439 more considerations on security).
440
441 CBOR::XS->new->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter)->decode ($cbor_data);
442
443 =item $cbor_data = $cbor->encode ($perl_scalar)
444
445 Converts the given Perl data structure (a scalar value) to its CBOR
446 representation.
447
448 =item $perl_scalar = $cbor->decode ($cbor_data)
449
450 The opposite of C<encode>: expects CBOR data and tries to parse it,
451 returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
452
453 =item ($perl_scalar, $octets) = $cbor->decode_prefix ($cbor_data)
454
455 This works like the C<decode> method, but instead of raising an exception
456 when there is trailing garbage after the CBOR string, it will silently
457 stop parsing there and return the number of characters consumed so far.
458
459 This is useful if your CBOR texts are not delimited by an outer protocol
460 and you need to know where the first CBOR string ends amd the next one
461 starts - CBOR strings are self-delimited, so it is possible to concatenate
462 CBOR strings without any delimiters or size fields and recover their data.
463
464 CBOR::XS->new->decode_prefix ("......")
465 => ("...", 3)
466
467 =back
468
469 =head2 INCREMENTAL PARSING
470
471 In some cases, there is the need for incremental parsing of JSON
472 texts. While this module always has to keep both CBOR text and resulting
473 Perl data structure in memory at one time, it does allow you to parse a
474 CBOR stream incrementally, using a similar to using "decode_prefix" to see
475 if a full CBOR object is available, but is much more efficient.
476
477 It basically works by parsing as much of a CBOR string as possible - if
478 the CBOR data is not complete yet, the parser will remember where it was,
479 to be able to restart when more data has been accumulated. Once enough
480 data is available to either decode a complete CBOR value or raise an
481 error, a real decode will be attempted.
482
483 A typical use case would be a network protocol that consists of sending
484 and receiving CBOR-encoded messages. The solution that works with CBOR and
485 about anything else is by prepending a length to every CBOR value, so the
486 receiver knows how many octets to read. More compact (and slightly slower)
487 would be to just send CBOR values back-to-back, as C<CBOR::XS> knows where
488 a CBOR value ends, and doesn't need an explicit length.
489
490 The following methods help with this:
491
492 =over 4
493
494 =item @decoded = $cbor->incr_parse ($buffer)
495
496 This method attempts to decode exactly one CBOR value from the beginning
497 of the given C<$buffer>. The value is removed from the C<$buffer> on
498 success. When C<$buffer> doesn't contain a complete value yet, it returns
499 nothing. Finally, when the C<$buffer> doesn't start with something
500 that could ever be a valid CBOR value, it raises an exception, just as
501 C<decode> would. In the latter case the decoder state is undefined and
502 must be reset before being able to parse further.
503
504 This method modifies the C<$buffer> in place. When no CBOR value can be
505 decoded, the decoder stores the current string offset. On the next call,
506 continues decoding at the place where it stopped before. For this to make
507 sense, the C<$buffer> must begin with the same octets as on previous
508 unsuccessful calls.
509
510 You can call this method in scalar context, in which case it either
511 returns a decoded value or C<undef>. This makes it impossible to
512 distinguish between CBOR null values (which decode to C<undef>) and an
513 unsuccessful decode, which is often acceptable.
514
515 =item @decoded = $cbor->incr_parse_multiple ($buffer)
516
517 Same as C<incr_parse>, but attempts to decode as many CBOR values as
518 possible in one go, instead of at most one. Calls to C<incr_parse> and
519 C<incr_parse_multiple> can be interleaved.
520
521 =item $cbor->incr_reset
522
523 Resets the incremental decoder. This throws away any saved state, so that
524 subsequent calls to C<incr_parse> or C<incr_parse_multiple> start to parse
525 a new CBOR value from the beginning of the C<$buffer> again.
526
527 This method can be called at any time, but it I<must> be called if you want
528 to change your C<$buffer> or there was a decoding error and you want to
529 reuse the C<$cbor> object for future incremental parsings.
530
531 =back
532
533
534 =head1 MAPPING
535
536 This section describes how CBOR::XS maps Perl values to CBOR values and
537 vice versa. These mappings are designed to "do the right thing" in most
538 circumstances automatically, preserving round-tripping characteristics
539 (what you put in comes out as something equivalent).
540
541 For the more enlightened: note that in the following descriptions,
542 lowercase I<perl> refers to the Perl interpreter, while uppercase I<Perl>
543 refers to the abstract Perl language itself.
544
545
546 =head2 CBOR -> PERL
547
548 =over 4
549
550 =item integers
551
552 CBOR integers become (numeric) perl scalars. On perls without 64 bit
553 support, 64 bit integers will be truncated or otherwise corrupted.
554
555 =item byte strings
556
557 Byte strings will become octet strings in Perl (the Byte values 0..255
558 will simply become characters of the same value in Perl).
559
560 =item UTF-8 strings
561
562 UTF-8 strings in CBOR will be decoded, i.e. the UTF-8 octets will be
563 decoded into proper Unicode code points. At the moment, the validity of
564 the UTF-8 octets will not be validated - corrupt input will result in
565 corrupted Perl strings.
566
567 =item arrays, maps
568
569 CBOR arrays and CBOR maps will be converted into references to a Perl
570 array or hash, respectively. The keys of the map will be stringified
571 during this process.
572
573 =item null
574
575 CBOR null becomes C<undef> in Perl.
576
577 =item true, false, undefined
578
579 These CBOR values become C<Types:Serialiser::true>,
580 C<Types:Serialiser::false> and C<Types::Serialiser::error>,
581 respectively. They are overloaded to act almost exactly like the numbers
582 C<1> and C<0> (for true and false) or to throw an exception on access (for
583 error). See the L<Types::Serialiser> manpage for details.
584
585 =item tagged values
586
587 Tagged items consists of a numeric tag and another CBOR value.
588
589 See L<TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS> and the description of C<< ->filter >>
590 for details on which tags are handled how.
591
592 =item anything else
593
594 Anything else (e.g. unsupported simple values) will raise a decoding
595 error.
596
597 =back
598
599
600 =head2 PERL -> CBOR
601
602 The mapping from Perl to CBOR is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
603 typeless language. That means this module can only guess which CBOR type
604 is meant by a perl value.
605
606 =over 4
607
608 =item hash references
609
610 Perl hash references become CBOR maps. As there is no inherent ordering in
611 hash keys (or CBOR maps), they will usually be encoded in a pseudo-random
612 order. This order can be different each time a hash is encoded.
613
614 Currently, tied hashes will use the indefinite-length format, while normal
615 hashes will use the fixed-length format.
616
617 =item array references
618
619 Perl array references become fixed-length CBOR arrays.
620
621 =item other references
622
623 Other unblessed references will be represented using
624 the indirection tag extension (tag value C<22098>,
625 L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/indirection>). CBOR decoders are guaranteed
626 to be able to decode these values somehow, by either "doing the right
627 thing", decoding into a generic tagged object, simply ignoring the tag, or
628 something else.
629
630 =item CBOR::XS::Tagged objects
631
632 Objects of this type must be arrays consisting of a single C<[tag, value]>
633 pair. The (numerical) tag will be encoded as a CBOR tag, the value will
634 be encoded as appropriate for the value. You must use C<CBOR::XS::tag> to
635 create such objects.
636
637 =item Types::Serialiser::true, Types::Serialiser::false, Types::Serialiser::error
638
639 These special values become CBOR true, CBOR false and CBOR undefined
640 values, respectively.
641
642 =item other blessed objects
643
644 Other blessed objects are serialised via C<TO_CBOR> or C<FREEZE>. See
645 L<TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS> for specific classes handled by this
646 module, and L<OBJECT SERIALISATION> for generic object serialisation.
647
648 =item simple scalars
649
650 Simple Perl scalars (any scalar that is not a reference) are the most
651 difficult objects to encode: CBOR::XS will encode undefined scalars as
652 CBOR null values, scalars that have last been used in a string context
653 before encoding as CBOR strings, and anything else as number value:
654
655 # dump as number
656 encode_cbor [2] # yields [2]
657 encode_cbor [-3.0e17] # yields [-3e+17]
658 my $value = 5; encode_cbor [$value] # yields [5]
659
660 # used as string, so dump as string (either byte or text)
661 print $value;
662 encode_cbor [$value] # yields ["5"]
663
664 # undef becomes null
665 encode_cbor [undef] # yields [null]
666
667 You can force the type to be a CBOR string by stringifying it:
668
669 my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
670 "$x"; # stringified
671 $x .= ""; # another, more awkward way to stringify
672 print $x; # perl does it for you, too, quite often
673
674 You can force whether a string is encoded as byte or text string by using
675 C<utf8::upgrade> and C<utf8::downgrade> (if C<text_strings> is disabled).
676
677 utf8::upgrade $x; # encode $x as text string
678 utf8::downgrade $x; # encode $x as byte string
679
680 More options are available, see L<TYPE CASTS>, below, and the C<text_keys>
681 and C<text_strings> options.
682
683 Perl doesn't define what operations up- and downgrade strings, so if the
684 difference between byte and text is important, you should up- or downgrade
685 your string as late as possible before encoding. You can also force the
686 use of CBOR text strings by using C<text_keys> or C<text_strings>.
687
688 You can force the type to be a CBOR number by numifying it:
689
690 my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
691 $x += 0; # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
692 $x *= 1; # same thing, the choice is yours.
693
694 You can not currently force the type in other, less obscure, ways. Tell me
695 if you need this capability (but don't forget to explain why it's needed
696 :).
697
698 Perl values that seem to be integers generally use the shortest possible
699 representation. Floating-point values will use either the IEEE single
700 format if possible without loss of precision, otherwise the IEEE double
701 format will be used. Perls that use formats other than IEEE double to
702 represent numerical values are supported, but might suffer loss of
703 precision.
704
705 =back
706
707 =head2 TYPE CASTS
708
709 B<EXPERIMENTAL>: As an experimental extension, C<CBOR::XS> allows you to
710 force specific CBOR types to be used when encoding. That allows you to
711 encode types not normally accessible (e.g. half floats) as well as force
712 string types even when C<text_strings> is in effect.
713
714 Type forcing is done by calling a special "cast" function which keeps a
715 copy of the value and returns a new value that can be handed over to any
716 CBOR encoder function.
717
718 The following casts are currently available (all of which are unary
719 operators, that is, have a prototype of C<$>):
720
721 =over
722
723 =item CBOR::XS::as_int $value
724
725 Forces the value to be encoded as some form of (basic, not bignum) integer
726 type.
727
728 =item CBOR::XS::as_text $value
729
730 Forces the value to be encoded as (UTF-8) text values.
731
732 =item CBOR::XS::as_bytes $value
733
734 Forces the value to be encoded as a (binary) string value.
735
736 Example: encode a perl string as binary even though C<text_strings> is in
737 effect.
738
739 CBOR::XS->new->text_strings->encode ([4, "text", CBOR::XS::bytes "bytevalue"]);
740
741 =item CBOR::XS::as_bool $value
742
743 Converts a Perl boolean (which can be any kind of scalar) into a CBOR
744 boolean. Strictly the same, but shorter to write, than:
745
746 $value ? Types::Serialiser::true : Types::Serialiser::false
747
748 =item CBOR::XS::as_float16 $value
749
750 Forces half-float (IEEE 754 binary16) encoding of the given value.
751
752 =item CBOR::XS::as_float32 $value
753
754 Forces single-float (IEEE 754 binary32) encoding of the given value.
755
756 =item CBOR::XS::as_float64 $value
757
758 Forces double-float (IEEE 754 binary64) encoding of the given value.
759
760 =item CBOR::XS::as_cbor $cbor_text
761
762 Not a type cast per-se, this type cast forces the argument to be encoded
763 as-is. This can be used to embed pre-encoded CBOR data.
764
765 Note that no checking on the validity of the C<$cbor_text> is done - it's
766 the callers responsibility to correctly encode values.
767
768 =item CBOR::XS::as_map [key => value...]
769
770 Treat the array reference as key value pairs and output a CBOR map. This
771 allows you to generate CBOR maps with arbitrary key types (or, if you
772 don't care about semantics, duplicate keys or pairs in a custom order),
773 which is otherwise hard to do with Perl.
774
775 The single argument must be an array reference with an even number of
776 elements.
777
778 Note that only the reference to the array is copied, the array itself is
779 not. Modifications done to the array before calling an encoding function
780 will be reflected in the encoded output.
781
782 Example: encode a CBOR map with a string and an integer as keys.
783
784 encode_cbor CBOR::XS::as_map [string => "value", 5 => "value"]
785
786 =back
787
788 =cut
789
790 sub CBOR::XS::as_cbor ($) { bless [$_[0], 0, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
791 sub CBOR::XS::as_int ($) { bless [$_[0], 1, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
792 sub CBOR::XS::as_bytes ($) { bless [$_[0], 2, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
793 sub CBOR::XS::as_text ($) { bless [$_[0], 3, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
794 sub CBOR::XS::as_float16 ($) { bless [$_[0], 4, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
795 sub CBOR::XS::as_float32 ($) { bless [$_[0], 5, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
796 sub CBOR::XS::as_float64 ($) { bless [$_[0], 6, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged:: }
797
798 sub CBOR::XS::as_bool ($) { $_[0] ? $Types::Serialiser::true : $Types::Serialiser::false }
799
800 sub CBOR::XS::as_map ($) {
801 ARRAY:: eq ref $_[0]
802 and $#{ $_[0] } & 1
803 or do { require Carp; Carp::croak ("CBOR::XS::as_map only acepts array references with an even number of elements, caught") };
804
805 bless [$_[0], 7, undef], CBOR::XS::Tagged::
806 }
807
808 =head2 OBJECT SERIALISATION
809
810 This module implements both a CBOR-specific and the generic
811 L<Types::Serialier> object serialisation protocol. The following
812 subsections explain both methods.
813
814 =head3 ENCODING
815
816 This module knows two way to serialise a Perl object: The CBOR-specific
817 way, and the generic way.
818
819 Whenever the encoder encounters a Perl object that it cannot serialise
820 directly (most of them), it will first look up the C<TO_CBOR> method on
821 it.
822
823 If it has a C<TO_CBOR> method, it will call it with the object as only
824 argument, and expects exactly one return value, which it will then
825 substitute and encode it in the place of the object.
826
827 Otherwise, it will look up the C<FREEZE> method. If it exists, it will
828 call it with the object as first argument, and the constant string C<CBOR>
829 as the second argument, to distinguish it from other serialisers.
830
831 The C<FREEZE> method can return any number of values (i.e. zero or
832 more). These will be encoded as CBOR perl object, together with the
833 classname.
834
835 These methods I<MUST NOT> change the data structure that is being
836 serialised. Failure to comply to this can result in memory corruption -
837 and worse.
838
839 If an object supports neither C<TO_CBOR> nor C<FREEZE>, encoding will fail
840 with an error.
841
842 =head3 DECODING
843
844 Objects encoded via C<TO_CBOR> cannot (normally) be automatically decoded,
845 but objects encoded via C<FREEZE> can be decoded using the following
846 protocol:
847
848 When an encoded CBOR perl object is encountered by the decoder, it will
849 look up the C<THAW> method, by using the stored classname, and will fail
850 if the method cannot be found.
851
852 After the lookup it will call the C<THAW> method with the stored classname
853 as first argument, the constant string C<CBOR> as second argument, and all
854 values returned by C<FREEZE> as remaining arguments.
855
856 =head3 EXAMPLES
857
858 Here is an example C<TO_CBOR> method:
859
860 sub My::Object::TO_CBOR {
861 my ($obj) = @_;
862
863 ["this is a serialised My::Object object", $obj->{id}]
864 }
865
866 When a C<My::Object> is encoded to CBOR, it will instead encode a simple
867 array with two members: a string, and the "object id". Decoding this CBOR
868 string will yield a normal perl array reference in place of the object.
869
870 A more useful and practical example would be a serialisation method for
871 the URI module. CBOR has a custom tag value for URIs, namely 32:
872
873 sub URI::TO_CBOR {
874 my ($self) = @_;
875 my $uri = "$self"; # stringify uri
876 utf8::upgrade $uri; # make sure it will be encoded as UTF-8 string
877 CBOR::XS::tag 32, "$_[0]"
878 }
879
880 This will encode URIs as a UTF-8 string with tag 32, which indicates an
881 URI.
882
883 Decoding such an URI will not (currently) give you an URI object, but
884 instead a CBOR::XS::Tagged object with tag number 32 and the string -
885 exactly what was returned by C<TO_CBOR>.
886
887 To serialise an object so it can automatically be deserialised, you need
888 to use C<FREEZE> and C<THAW>. To take the URI module as example, this
889 would be a possible implementation:
890
891 sub URI::FREEZE {
892 my ($self, $serialiser) = @_;
893 "$self" # encode url string
894 }
895
896 sub URI::THAW {
897 my ($class, $serialiser, $uri) = @_;
898 $class->new ($uri)
899 }
900
901 Unlike C<TO_CBOR>, multiple values can be returned by C<FREEZE>. For
902 example, a C<FREEZE> method that returns "type", "id" and "variant" values
903 would cause an invocation of C<THAW> with 5 arguments:
904
905 sub My::Object::FREEZE {
906 my ($self, $serialiser) = @_;
907
908 ($self->{type}, $self->{id}, $self->{variant})
909 }
910
911 sub My::Object::THAW {
912 my ($class, $serialiser, $type, $id, $variant) = @_;
913
914 $class-<new (type => $type, id => $id, variant => $variant)
915 }
916
917
918 =head1 MAGIC HEADER
919
920 There is no way to distinguish CBOR from other formats
921 programmatically. To make it easier to distinguish CBOR from other
922 formats, the CBOR specification has a special "magic string" that can be
923 prepended to any CBOR string without changing its meaning.
924
925 This string is available as C<$CBOR::XS::MAGIC>. This module does not
926 prepend this string to the CBOR data it generates, but it will ignore it
927 if present, so users can prepend this string as a "file type" indicator as
928 required.
929
930
931 =head1 THE CBOR::XS::Tagged CLASS
932
933 CBOR has the concept of tagged values - any CBOR value can be tagged with
934 a numeric 64 bit number, which are centrally administered.
935
936 C<CBOR::XS> handles a few tags internally when en- or decoding. You can
937 also create tags yourself by encoding C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects, and the
938 decoder will create C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects itself when it hits an
939 unknown tag.
940
941 These objects are simply blessed array references - the first member of
942 the array being the numerical tag, the second being the value.
943
944 You can interact with C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects in the following ways:
945
946 =over 4
947
948 =item $tagged = CBOR::XS::tag $tag, $value
949
950 This function(!) creates a new C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> object using the given
951 C<$tag> (0..2**64-1) to tag the given C<$value> (which can be any Perl
952 value that can be encoded in CBOR, including serialisable Perl objects and
953 C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> objects).
954
955 =item $tagged->[0]
956
957 =item $tagged->[0] = $new_tag
958
959 =item $tag = $tagged->tag
960
961 =item $new_tag = $tagged->tag ($new_tag)
962
963 Access/mutate the tag.
964
965 =item $tagged->[1]
966
967 =item $tagged->[1] = $new_value
968
969 =item $value = $tagged->value
970
971 =item $new_value = $tagged->value ($new_value)
972
973 Access/mutate the tagged value.
974
975 =back
976
977 =cut
978
979 sub tag($$) {
980 bless [@_], CBOR::XS::Tagged::;
981 }
982
983 sub CBOR::XS::Tagged::tag {
984 $_[0][0] = $_[1] if $#_;
985 $_[0][0]
986 }
987
988 sub CBOR::XS::Tagged::value {
989 $_[0][1] = $_[1] if $#_;
990 $_[0][1]
991 }
992
993 =head2 EXAMPLES
994
995 Here are some examples of C<CBOR::XS::Tagged> uses to tag objects.
996
997 You can look up CBOR tag value and emanings in the IANA registry at
998 L<http://www.iana.org/assignments/cbor-tags/cbor-tags.xhtml>.
999
1000 Prepend a magic header (C<$CBOR::XS::MAGIC>):
1001
1002 my $cbor = encode_cbor CBOR::XS::tag 55799, $value;
1003 # same as:
1004 my $cbor = $CBOR::XS::MAGIC . encode_cbor $value;
1005
1006 Serialise some URIs and a regex in an array:
1007
1008 my $cbor = encode_cbor [
1009 (CBOR::XS::tag 32, "http://www.nethype.de/"),
1010 (CBOR::XS::tag 32, "http://software.schmorp.de/"),
1011 (CBOR::XS::tag 35, "^[Pp][Ee][Rr][lL]\$"),
1012 ];
1013
1014 Wrap CBOR data in CBOR:
1015
1016 my $cbor_cbor = encode_cbor
1017 CBOR::XS::tag 24,
1018 encode_cbor [1, 2, 3];
1019
1020 =head1 TAG HANDLING AND EXTENSIONS
1021
1022 This section describes how this module handles specific tagged values
1023 and extensions. If a tag is not mentioned here and no additional filters
1024 are provided for it, then the default handling applies (creating a
1025 CBOR::XS::Tagged object on decoding, and only encoding the tag when
1026 explicitly requested).
1027
1028 Tags not handled specifically are currently converted into a
1029 L<CBOR::XS::Tagged> object, which is simply a blessed array reference
1030 consisting of the numeric tag value followed by the (decoded) CBOR value.
1031
1032 Future versions of this module reserve the right to special case
1033 additional tags (such as base64url).
1034
1035 =head2 ENFORCED TAGS
1036
1037 These tags are always handled when decoding, and their handling cannot be
1038 overridden by the user.
1039
1040 =over 4
1041
1042 =item 26 (perl-object, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/perl-object>)
1043
1044 These tags are automatically created (and decoded) for serialisable
1045 objects using the C<FREEZE/THAW> methods (the L<Types::Serialier> object
1046 serialisation protocol). See L<OBJECT SERIALISATION> for details.
1047
1048 =item 28, 29 (shareable, sharedref, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/value-sharing>)
1049
1050 These tags are automatically decoded when encountered (and they do not
1051 result in a cyclic data structure, see C<allow_cycles>), resulting in
1052 shared values in the decoded object. They are only encoded, however, when
1053 C<allow_sharing> is enabled.
1054
1055 Not all shared values can be successfully decoded: values that reference
1056 themselves will I<currently> decode as C<undef> (this is not the same
1057 as a reference pointing to itself, which will be represented as a value
1058 that contains an indirect reference to itself - these will be decoded
1059 properly).
1060
1061 Note that considerably more shared value data structures can be decoded
1062 than will be encoded - currently, only values pointed to by references
1063 will be shared, others will not. While non-reference shared values can be
1064 generated in Perl with some effort, they were considered too unimportant
1065 to be supported in the encoder. The decoder, however, will decode these
1066 values as shared values.
1067
1068 =item 256, 25 (stringref-namespace, stringref, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/stringref>)
1069
1070 These tags are automatically decoded when encountered. They are only
1071 encoded, however, when C<pack_strings> is enabled.
1072
1073 =item 22098 (indirection, L<http://cbor.schmorp.de/indirection>)
1074
1075 This tag is automatically generated when a reference are encountered (with
1076 the exception of hash and array references). It is converted to a reference
1077 when decoding.
1078
1079 =item 55799 (self-describe CBOR, RFC 7049)
1080
1081 This value is not generated on encoding (unless explicitly requested by
1082 the user), and is simply ignored when decoding.
1083
1084 =back
1085
1086 =head2 NON-ENFORCED TAGS
1087
1088 These tags have default filters provided when decoding. Their handling can
1089 be overridden by changing the C<%CBOR::XS::FILTER> entry for the tag, or by
1090 providing a custom C<filter> callback when decoding.
1091
1092 When they result in decoding into a specific Perl class, the module
1093 usually provides a corresponding C<TO_CBOR> method as well.
1094
1095 When any of these need to load additional modules that are not part of the
1096 perl core distribution (e.g. L<URI>), it is (currently) up to the user to
1097 provide these modules. The decoding usually fails with an exception if the
1098 required module cannot be loaded.
1099
1100 =over 4
1101
1102 =item 0, 1 (date/time string, seconds since the epoch)
1103
1104 These tags are decoded into L<Time::Piece> objects. The corresponding
1105 C<Time::Piece::TO_CBOR> method always encodes into tag 1 values currently.
1106
1107 The L<Time::Piece> API is generally surprisingly bad, and fractional
1108 seconds are only accidentally kept intact, so watch out. On the plus side,
1109 the module comes with perl since 5.10, which has to count for something.
1110
1111 =item 2, 3 (positive/negative bignum)
1112
1113 These tags are decoded into L<Math::BigInt> objects. The corresponding
1114 C<Math::BigInt::TO_CBOR> method encodes "small" bigints into normal CBOR
1115 integers, and others into positive/negative CBOR bignums.
1116
1117 =item 4, 5, 264, 265 (decimal fraction/bigfloat)
1118
1119 Both decimal fractions and bigfloats are decoded into L<Math::BigFloat>
1120 objects. The corresponding C<Math::BigFloat::TO_CBOR> method I<always>
1121 encodes into a decimal fraction (either tag 4 or 264).
1122
1123 NaN and infinities are not encoded properly, as they cannot be represented
1124 in CBOR.
1125
1126 See L<BIGNUM SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS> for more info.
1127
1128 =item 30 (rational numbers)
1129
1130 These tags are decoded into L<Math::BigRat> objects. The corresponding
1131 C<Math::BigRat::TO_CBOR> method encodes rational numbers with denominator
1132 C<1> via their numerator only, i.e., they become normal integers or
1133 C<bignums>.
1134
1135 See L<BIGNUM SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS> for more info.
1136
1137 =item 21, 22, 23 (expected later JSON conversion)
1138
1139 CBOR::XS is not a CBOR-to-JSON converter, and will simply ignore these
1140 tags.
1141
1142 =item 32 (URI)
1143
1144 These objects decode into L<URI> objects. The corresponding
1145 C<URI::TO_CBOR> method again results in a CBOR URI value.
1146
1147 =back
1148
1149 =cut
1150
1151 =head1 CBOR and JSON
1152
1153 CBOR is supposed to implement a superset of the JSON data model, and is,
1154 with some coercion, able to represent all JSON texts (something that other
1155 "binary JSON" formats such as BSON generally do not support).
1156
1157 CBOR implements some extra hints and support for JSON interoperability,
1158 and the spec offers further guidance for conversion between CBOR and
1159 JSON. None of this is currently implemented in CBOR, and the guidelines
1160 in the spec do not result in correct round-tripping of data. If JSON
1161 interoperability is improved in the future, then the goal will be to
1162 ensure that decoded JSON data will round-trip encoding and decoding to
1163 CBOR intact.
1164
1165
1166 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1167
1168 Tl;dr... if you want to decode or encode CBOR from untrusted sources, you
1169 should start with a coder object created via C<new_safe> (which implements
1170 the mitigations explained below):
1171
1172 my $coder = CBOR::XS->new_safe;
1173
1174 my $data = $coder->decode ($cbor_text);
1175 my $cbor = $coder->encode ($data);
1176
1177 Longer version: When you are using CBOR in a protocol, talking to
1178 untrusted potentially hostile creatures requires some thought:
1179
1180 =over 4
1181
1182 =item Security of the CBOR decoder itself
1183
1184 First and foremost, your CBOR decoder should be secure, that is, should
1185 not have any buffer overflows or similar bugs that could potentially be
1186 exploited. Obviously, this module should ensure that and I am trying hard
1187 on making that true, but you never know.
1188
1189 =item CBOR::XS can invoke almost arbitrary callbacks during decoding
1190
1191 CBOR::XS supports object serialisation - decoding CBOR can cause calls
1192 to I<any> C<THAW> method in I<any> package that exists in your process
1193 (that is, CBOR::XS will not try to load modules, but any existing C<THAW>
1194 method or function can be called, so they all have to be secure).
1195
1196 Less obviously, it will also invoke C<TO_CBOR> and C<FREEZE> methods -
1197 even if all your C<THAW> methods are secure, encoding data structures from
1198 untrusted sources can invoke those and trigger bugs in those.
1199
1200 So, if you are not sure about the security of all the modules you
1201 have loaded (you shouldn't), you should disable this part using
1202 C<forbid_objects> or using C<new_safe>.
1203
1204 =item CBOR can be extended with tags that call library code
1205
1206 CBOR can be extended with tags, and C<CBOR::XS> has a registry of
1207 conversion functions for many existing tags that can be extended via
1208 third-party modules (see the C<filter> method).
1209
1210 If you don't trust these, you should configure the "safe" filter function,
1211 C<CBOR::XS::safe_filter> (C<new_safe> does this), which by default only
1212 includes conversion functions that are considered "safe" by the author
1213 (but again, they can be extended by third party modules).
1214
1215 Depending on your level of paranoia, you can use the "safe" filter:
1216
1217 $cbor->filter (\&CBOR::XS::safe_filter);
1218
1219 ... your own filter...
1220
1221 $cbor->filter (sub { ... do your stuffs here ... });
1222
1223 ... or even no filter at all, disabling all tag decoding:
1224
1225 $cbor->filter (sub { });
1226
1227 This is never a problem for encoding, as the tag mechanism only exists in
1228 CBOR texts.
1229
1230 =item Resource-starving attacks: object memory usage
1231
1232 You need to avoid resource-starving attacks. That means you should limit
1233 the size of CBOR data you accept, or make sure then when your resources
1234 run out, that's just fine (e.g. by using a separate process that can
1235 crash safely). The size of a CBOR string in octets is usually a good
1236 indication of the size of the resources required to decode it into a Perl
1237 structure. While CBOR::XS can check the size of the CBOR text (using
1238 C<max_size> - done by C<new_safe>), it might be too late when you already
1239 have it in memory, so you might want to check the size before you accept
1240 the string.
1241
1242 As for encoding, it is possible to construct data structures that are
1243 relatively small but result in large CBOR texts (for example by having an
1244 array full of references to the same big data structure, which will all be
1245 deep-cloned during encoding by default). This is rarely an actual issue
1246 (and the worst case is still just running out of memory), but you can
1247 reduce this risk by using C<allow_sharing>.
1248
1249 =item Resource-starving attacks: stack overflows
1250
1251 CBOR::XS recurses using the C stack when decoding objects and arrays. The
1252 C stack is a limited resource: for instance, on my amd64 machine with 8MB
1253 of stack size I can decode around 180k nested arrays but only 14k nested
1254 CBOR objects (due to perl itself recursing deeply on croak to free the
1255 temporary). If that is exceeded, the program crashes. To be conservative,
1256 the default nesting limit is set to 512. If your process has a smaller
1257 stack, you should adjust this setting accordingly with the C<max_depth>
1258 method.
1259
1260 =item Resource-starving attacks: CPU en-/decoding complexity
1261
1262 CBOR::XS will use the L<Math::BigInt>, L<Math::BigFloat> and
1263 L<Math::BigRat> libraries to represent encode/decode bignums. These can be
1264 very slow (as in, centuries of CPU time) and can even crash your program
1265 (and are generally not very trustworthy). See the next section on bignum
1266 security for details.
1267
1268 =item Data breaches: leaking information in error messages
1269
1270 CBOR::XS might leak contents of your Perl data structures in its error
1271 messages, so when you serialise sensitive information you might want to
1272 make sure that exceptions thrown by CBOR::XS will not end up in front of
1273 untrusted eyes.
1274
1275 =item Something else...
1276
1277 Something else could bomb you, too, that I forgot to think of. In that
1278 case, you get to keep the pieces. I am always open for hints, though...
1279
1280 =back
1281
1282
1283 =head1 BIGNUM SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1284
1285 CBOR::XS provides a C<TO_CBOR> method for both L<Math::BigInt> and
1286 L<Math::BigFloat> that tries to encode the number in the simplest possible
1287 way, that is, either a CBOR integer, a CBOR bigint/decimal fraction (tag
1288 4) or an arbitrary-exponent decimal fraction (tag 264). Rational numbers
1289 (L<Math::BigRat>, tag 30) can also contain bignums as members.
1290
1291 CBOR::XS will also understand base-2 bigfloat or arbitrary-exponent
1292 bigfloats (tags 5 and 265), but it will never generate these on its own.
1293
1294 Using the built-in L<Math::BigInt::Calc> support, encoding and decoding
1295 decimal fractions is generally fast. Decoding bigints can be slow for very
1296 big numbers (tens of thousands of digits, something that could potentially
1297 be caught by limiting the size of CBOR texts), and decoding bigfloats or
1298 arbitrary-exponent bigfloats can be I<extremely> slow (minutes, decades)
1299 for large exponents (roughly 40 bit and longer).
1300
1301 Additionally, L<Math::BigInt> can take advantage of other bignum
1302 libraries, such as L<Math::GMP>, which cannot handle big floats with large
1303 exponents, and might simply abort or crash your program, due to their code
1304 quality.
1305
1306 This can be a concern if you want to parse untrusted CBOR. If it is, you
1307 might want to disable decoding of tag 2 (bigint) and 3 (negative bigint)
1308 types. You should also disable types 5 and 265, as these can be slow even
1309 without bigints.
1310
1311 Disabling bigints will also partially or fully disable types that rely on
1312 them, e.g. rational numbers that use bignums.
1313
1314
1315 =head1 CBOR IMPLEMENTATION NOTES
1316
1317 This section contains some random implementation notes. They do not
1318 describe guaranteed behaviour, but merely behaviour as-is implemented
1319 right now.
1320
1321 64 bit integers are only properly decoded when Perl was built with 64 bit
1322 support.
1323
1324 Strings and arrays are encoded with a definite length. Hashes as well,
1325 unless they are tied (or otherwise magical).
1326
1327 Only the double data type is supported for NV data types - when Perl uses
1328 long double to represent floating point values, they might not be encoded
1329 properly. Half precision types are accepted, but not encoded.
1330
1331 Strict mode and canonical mode are not implemented.
1332
1333
1334 =head1 LIMITATIONS ON PERLS WITHOUT 64-BIT INTEGER SUPPORT
1335
1336 On perls that were built without 64 bit integer support (these are rare
1337 nowadays, even on 32 bit architectures, as all major Perl distributions
1338 are built with 64 bit integer support), support for any kind of 64 bit
1339 value in CBOR is very limited - most likely, these 64 bit values will
1340 be truncated, corrupted, or otherwise not decoded correctly. This also
1341 includes string, float, array and map sizes that are stored as 64 bit
1342 integers.
1343
1344
1345 =head1 THREADS
1346
1347 This module is I<not> guaranteed to be thread safe and there are no
1348 plans to change this until Perl gets thread support (as opposed to the
1349 horribly slow so-called "threads" which are simply slow and bloated
1350 process simulations - use fork, it's I<much> faster, cheaper, better).
1351
1352 (It might actually work, but you have been warned).
1353
1354
1355 =head1 BUGS
1356
1357 While the goal of this module is to be correct, that unfortunately does
1358 not mean it's bug-free, only that I think its design is bug-free. If you
1359 keep reporting bugs they will be fixed swiftly, though.
1360
1361 Please refrain from using rt.cpan.org or any other bug reporting
1362 service. I put the contact address into my modules for a reason.
1363
1364 =cut
1365
1366 # clumsy and slow hv_store-in-hash helper function
1367 sub _hv_store {
1368 $_[0]{$_[1]} = $_[2];
1369 }
1370
1371 our %FILTER = (
1372 0 => sub { # rfc4287 datetime, utf-8
1373 require Time::Piece;
1374 # Time::Piece::Strptime uses the "incredibly flexible date parsing routine"
1375 # from FreeBSD, which can't parse ISO 8601, RFC3339, RFC4287 or much of anything
1376 # else either. Whats incredibe over standard strptime totally escapes me.
1377 # doesn't do fractional times, either. sigh.
1378 # In fact, it's all a lie, it uses whatever strptime it wants, and of course,
1379 # they are all incompatible. The openbsd one simply ignores %z (but according to the
1380 # docs, it would be much more incredibly flexible indeed. If it worked, that is.).
1381 scalar eval {
1382 my $s = $_[1];
1383
1384 $s =~ s/Z$/+00:00/;
1385 $s =~ s/(\.[0-9]+)?([+-][0-9][0-9]):([0-9][0-9])$//
1386 or die;
1387
1388 my $b = $1 - ($2 * 60 + $3) * 60; # fractional part + offset. hopefully
1389 my $d = Time::Piece->strptime ($s, "%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S");
1390
1391 Time::Piece::gmtime ($d->epoch + $b)
1392 } || die "corrupted CBOR date/time string ($_[0])";
1393 },
1394
1395 1 => sub { # seconds since the epoch, possibly fractional
1396 require Time::Piece;
1397 scalar Time::Piece::gmtime (pop)
1398 },
1399
1400 2 => sub { # pos bigint
1401 require Math::BigInt;
1402 Math::BigInt->new ("0x" . unpack "H*", pop)
1403 },
1404
1405 3 => sub { # neg bigint
1406 require Math::BigInt;
1407 -Math::BigInt->new ("0x" . unpack "H*", pop)
1408 },
1409
1410 4 => sub { # decimal fraction, array
1411 require Math::BigFloat;
1412 Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1] . "E" . $_[1][0])
1413 },
1414
1415 264 => sub { # decimal fraction with arbitrary exponent
1416 require Math::BigFloat;
1417 Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1] . "E" . $_[1][0])
1418 },
1419
1420 5 => sub { # bigfloat, array
1421 require Math::BigFloat;
1422 scalar Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1]) * Math::BigFloat->new (2)->bpow ($_[1][0])
1423 },
1424
1425 265 => sub { # bigfloat with arbitrary exponent
1426 require Math::BigFloat;
1427 scalar Math::BigFloat->new ($_[1][1]) * Math::BigFloat->new (2)->bpow ($_[1][0])
1428 },
1429
1430 30 => sub { # rational number
1431 require Math::BigRat;
1432 Math::BigRat->new ("$_[1][0]/$_[1][1]") # separate parameters only work in recent versons
1433 },
1434
1435 21 => sub { pop }, # expected conversion to base64url encoding
1436 22 => sub { pop }, # expected conversion to base64 encoding
1437 23 => sub { pop }, # expected conversion to base16 encoding
1438
1439 # 24 # embedded cbor, byte string
1440
1441 32 => sub {
1442 require URI;
1443 URI->new (pop)
1444 },
1445
1446 # 33 # base64url rfc4648, utf-8
1447 # 34 # base64 rfc46484, utf-8
1448 # 35 # regex pcre/ecma262, utf-8
1449 # 36 # mime message rfc2045, utf-8
1450 );
1451
1452 sub default_filter {
1453 &{ $FILTER{$_[0]} or return }
1454 }
1455
1456 our %SAFE_FILTER = map { $_ => $FILTER{$_} } 0, 1, 21, 22, 23, 32;
1457
1458 sub safe_filter {
1459 &{ $SAFE_FILTER{$_[0]} or return }
1460 }
1461
1462 sub URI::TO_CBOR {
1463 my $uri = $_[0]->as_string;
1464 utf8::upgrade $uri;
1465 tag 32, $uri
1466 }
1467
1468 sub Math::BigInt::TO_CBOR {
1469 if (-2147483648 <= $_[0] && $_[0] <= 2147483647) {
1470 $_[0]->numify
1471 } else {
1472 my $hex = substr $_[0]->as_hex, 2;
1473 $hex = "0$hex" if 1 & length $hex; # sigh
1474 tag $_[0] >= 0 ? 2 : 3, pack "H*", $hex
1475 }
1476 }
1477
1478 sub Math::BigFloat::TO_CBOR {
1479 my ($m, $e) = $_[0]->parts;
1480
1481 -9223372036854775808 <= $e && $e <= 18446744073709551615
1482 ? tag 4, [$e->numify, $m]
1483 : tag 264, [$e, $m]
1484 }
1485
1486 sub Math::BigRat::TO_CBOR {
1487 my ($n, $d) = $_[0]->parts;
1488
1489 # older versions of BigRat need *1, as they not always return numbers
1490
1491 $d*1 == 1
1492 ? $n*1
1493 : tag 30, [$n*1, $d*1]
1494 }
1495
1496 sub Time::Piece::TO_CBOR {
1497 tag 1, 0 + $_[0]->epoch
1498 }
1499
1500 XSLoader::load "CBOR::XS", $VERSION;
1501
1502 =head1 SEE ALSO
1503
1504 The L<JSON> and L<JSON::XS> modules that do similar, but human-readable,
1505 serialisation.
1506
1507 The L<Types::Serialiser> module provides the data model for true, false
1508 and error values.
1509
1510 =head1 AUTHOR
1511
1512 Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1513 http://home.schmorp.de/
1514
1515 =cut
1516
1517 1
1518