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Revision: 1.132
Committed: Wed Mar 17 01:45:43 2010 UTC (14 years, 2 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rel-2_29
Changes since 1.131: +1 -1 lines
Log Message:
2.29

File Contents

# User Rev Content
1 root 1.92 =head1 NAME
2    
3 root 1.102 JSON::XS - JSON serialising/deserialising, done correctly and fast
4    
5 root 1.84 =encoding utf-8
6    
7 root 1.62 JSON::XS - 正しくて高速な JSON シリアライザ/デシリアライザ
8     (http://fleur.hio.jp/perldoc/mix/lib/JSON/XS.html)
9    
10 root 1.1 =head1 SYNOPSIS
11    
12     use JSON::XS;
13    
14 root 1.22 # exported functions, they croak on error
15     # and expect/generate UTF-8
16 root 1.12
17 root 1.78 $utf8_encoded_json_text = encode_json $perl_hash_or_arrayref;
18     $perl_hash_or_arrayref = decode_json $utf8_encoded_json_text;
19 root 1.12
20 root 1.22 # OO-interface
21 root 1.12
22     $coder = JSON::XS->new->ascii->pretty->allow_nonref;
23     $pretty_printed_unencoded = $coder->encode ($perl_scalar);
24     $perl_scalar = $coder->decode ($unicode_json_text);
25    
26 root 1.77 # Note that JSON version 2.0 and above will automatically use JSON::XS
27     # if available, at virtually no speed overhead either, so you should
28     # be able to just:
29    
30     use JSON;
31    
32     # and do the same things, except that you have a pure-perl fallback now.
33    
34 root 1.1 =head1 DESCRIPTION
35    
36 root 1.2 This module converts Perl data structures to JSON and vice versa. Its
37     primary goal is to be I<correct> and its secondary goal is to be
38     I<fast>. To reach the latter goal it was written in C.
39    
40 root 1.77 Beginning with version 2.0 of the JSON module, when both JSON and
41     JSON::XS are installed, then JSON will fall back on JSON::XS (this can be
42 root 1.105 overridden) with no overhead due to emulation (by inheriting constructor
43 root 1.77 and methods). If JSON::XS is not available, it will fall back to the
44     compatible JSON::PP module as backend, so using JSON instead of JSON::XS
45     gives you a portable JSON API that can be fast when you need and doesn't
46     require a C compiler when that is a problem.
47    
48 root 1.2 As this is the n-th-something JSON module on CPAN, what was the reason
49     to write yet another JSON module? While it seems there are many JSON
50     modules, none of them correctly handle all corner cases, and in most cases
51     their maintainers are unresponsive, gone missing, or not listening to bug
52     reports for other reasons.
53    
54 root 1.10 See MAPPING, below, on how JSON::XS maps perl values to JSON values and
55     vice versa.
56    
57 root 1.2 =head2 FEATURES
58    
59 root 1.1 =over 4
60    
61 root 1.68 =item * correct Unicode handling
62 root 1.2
63 root 1.84 This module knows how to handle Unicode, documents how and when it does
64     so, and even documents what "correct" means.
65 root 1.2
66     =item * round-trip integrity
67    
68 root 1.105 When you serialise a perl data structure using only data types supported
69 root 1.131 by JSON and Perl, the deserialised data structure is identical on the Perl
70     level. (e.g. the string "2.0" doesn't suddenly become "2" just because
71     it looks like a number). There I<are> minor exceptions to this, read the
72     MAPPING section below to learn about those.
73 root 1.2
74     =item * strict checking of JSON correctness
75    
76 root 1.16 There is no guessing, no generating of illegal JSON texts by default,
77 root 1.10 and only JSON is accepted as input by default (the latter is a security
78     feature).
79 root 1.2
80     =item * fast
81    
82 root 1.84 Compared to other JSON modules and other serialisers such as Storable,
83     this module usually compares favourably in terms of speed, too.
84 root 1.2
85     =item * simple to use
86    
87 root 1.105 This module has both a simple functional interface as well as an object
88 root 1.84 oriented interface interface.
89 root 1.2
90     =item * reasonably versatile output formats
91    
92 root 1.84 You can choose between the most compact guaranteed-single-line format
93 root 1.105 possible (nice for simple line-based protocols), a pure-ASCII format
94 root 1.21 (for when your transport is not 8-bit clean, still supports the whole
95 root 1.68 Unicode range), or a pretty-printed format (for when you want to read that
96 root 1.21 stuff). Or you can combine those features in whatever way you like.
97 root 1.2
98     =back
99    
100 root 1.1 =cut
101    
102     package JSON::XS;
103    
104 root 1.121 use common::sense;
105 root 1.20
106 root 1.132 our $VERSION = '2.29';
107 root 1.43 our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
108 root 1.1
109 root 1.78 our @EXPORT = qw(encode_json decode_json to_json from_json);
110    
111     sub to_json($) {
112     require Carp;
113     Carp::croak ("JSON::XS::to_json has been renamed to encode_json, either downgrade to pre-2.0 versions of JSON::XS or rename the call");
114     }
115    
116     sub from_json($) {
117     require Carp;
118     Carp::croak ("JSON::XS::from_json has been renamed to decode_json, either downgrade to pre-2.0 versions of JSON::XS or rename the call");
119     }
120 root 1.1
121 root 1.43 use Exporter;
122     use XSLoader;
123 root 1.1
124 root 1.2 =head1 FUNCTIONAL INTERFACE
125    
126 root 1.68 The following convenience methods are provided by this module. They are
127 root 1.2 exported by default:
128    
129     =over 4
130    
131 root 1.78 =item $json_text = encode_json $perl_scalar
132 root 1.2
133 root 1.63 Converts the given Perl data structure to a UTF-8 encoded, binary string
134     (that is, the string contains octets only). Croaks on error.
135 root 1.2
136 root 1.16 This function call is functionally identical to:
137 root 1.2
138 root 1.16 $json_text = JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ($perl_scalar)
139    
140 root 1.105 Except being faster.
141 root 1.16
142 root 1.78 =item $perl_scalar = decode_json $json_text
143 root 1.2
144 root 1.78 The opposite of C<encode_json>: expects an UTF-8 (binary) string and tries
145 root 1.63 to parse that as an UTF-8 encoded JSON text, returning the resulting
146     reference. Croaks on error.
147 root 1.2
148 root 1.16 This function call is functionally identical to:
149    
150     $perl_scalar = JSON::XS->new->utf8->decode ($json_text)
151    
152 root 1.105 Except being faster.
153 root 1.2
154 root 1.43 =item $is_boolean = JSON::XS::is_bool $scalar
155    
156     Returns true if the passed scalar represents either JSON::XS::true or
157     JSON::XS::false, two constants that act like C<1> and C<0>, respectively
158     and are used to represent JSON C<true> and C<false> values in Perl.
159    
160     See MAPPING, below, for more information on how JSON values are mapped to
161     Perl.
162    
163 root 1.2 =back
164    
165 root 1.23
166 root 1.63 =head1 A FEW NOTES ON UNICODE AND PERL
167    
168     Since this often leads to confusion, here are a few very clear words on
169     how Unicode works in Perl, modulo bugs.
170    
171     =over 4
172    
173     =item 1. Perl strings can store characters with ordinal values > 255.
174    
175 root 1.68 This enables you to store Unicode characters as single characters in a
176 root 1.63 Perl string - very natural.
177    
178     =item 2. Perl does I<not> associate an encoding with your strings.
179    
180 root 1.84 ... until you force it to, e.g. when matching it against a regex, or
181     printing the scalar to a file, in which case Perl either interprets your
182     string as locale-encoded text, octets/binary, or as Unicode, depending
183     on various settings. In no case is an encoding stored together with your
184     data, it is I<use> that decides encoding, not any magical meta data.
185 root 1.63
186     =item 3. The internal utf-8 flag has no meaning with regards to the
187     encoding of your string.
188    
189     Just ignore that flag unless you debug a Perl bug, a module written in
190     XS or want to dive into the internals of perl. Otherwise it will only
191     confuse you, as, despite the name, it says nothing about how your string
192 root 1.68 is encoded. You can have Unicode strings with that flag set, with that
193 root 1.63 flag clear, and you can have binary data with that flag set and that flag
194     clear. Other possibilities exist, too.
195    
196     If you didn't know about that flag, just the better, pretend it doesn't
197     exist.
198    
199     =item 4. A "Unicode String" is simply a string where each character can be
200 root 1.105 validly interpreted as a Unicode code point.
201 root 1.63
202     If you have UTF-8 encoded data, it is no longer a Unicode string, but a
203     Unicode string encoded in UTF-8, giving you a binary string.
204    
205     =item 5. A string containing "high" (> 255) character values is I<not> a UTF-8 string.
206    
207 root 1.68 It's a fact. Learn to live with it.
208 root 1.63
209     =back
210    
211     I hope this helps :)
212    
213    
214 root 1.2 =head1 OBJECT-ORIENTED INTERFACE
215    
216     The object oriented interface lets you configure your own encoding or
217     decoding style, within the limits of supported formats.
218    
219     =over 4
220    
221     =item $json = new JSON::XS
222    
223     Creates a new JSON::XS object that can be used to de/encode JSON
224     strings. All boolean flags described below are by default I<disabled>.
225 root 1.1
226 root 1.2 The mutators for flags all return the JSON object again and thus calls can
227     be chained:
228    
229 root 1.16 my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after->encode ({a => [1,2]})
230 root 1.3 => {"a": [1, 2]}
231 root 1.2
232 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->ascii ([$enable])
233 root 1.2
234 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_ascii
235    
236 root 1.16 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will not
237     generate characters outside the code range C<0..127> (which is ASCII). Any
238 root 1.68 Unicode characters outside that range will be escaped using either a
239 root 1.16 single \uXXXX (BMP characters) or a double \uHHHH\uLLLLL escape sequence,
240 root 1.32 as per RFC4627. The resulting encoded JSON text can be treated as a native
241 root 1.68 Unicode string, an ascii-encoded, latin1-encoded or UTF-8 encoded string,
242 root 1.32 or any other superset of ASCII.
243 root 1.2
244     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not escape Unicode
245 root 1.33 characters unless required by the JSON syntax or other flags. This results
246     in a faster and more compact format.
247    
248 root 1.90 See also the section I<ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES> later in this
249     document.
250    
251 root 1.33 The main use for this flag is to produce JSON texts that can be
252     transmitted over a 7-bit channel, as the encoded JSON texts will not
253     contain any 8 bit characters.
254 root 1.2
255 root 1.16 JSON::XS->new->ascii (1)->encode ([chr 0x10401])
256     => ["\ud801\udc01"]
257 root 1.3
258 root 1.33 =item $json = $json->latin1 ([$enable])
259    
260 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_latin1
261    
262 root 1.33 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will encode
263     the resulting JSON text as latin1 (or iso-8859-1), escaping any characters
264     outside the code range C<0..255>. The resulting string can be treated as a
265 root 1.68 latin1-encoded JSON text or a native Unicode string. The C<decode> method
266 root 1.33 will not be affected in any way by this flag, as C<decode> by default
267 root 1.68 expects Unicode, which is a strict superset of latin1.
268 root 1.33
269     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not escape Unicode
270     characters unless required by the JSON syntax or other flags.
271    
272 root 1.90 See also the section I<ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES> later in this
273     document.
274    
275 root 1.33 The main use for this flag is efficiently encoding binary data as JSON
276     text, as most octets will not be escaped, resulting in a smaller encoded
277     size. The disadvantage is that the resulting JSON text is encoded
278     in latin1 (and must correctly be treated as such when storing and
279 root 1.68 transferring), a rare encoding for JSON. It is therefore most useful when
280 root 1.33 you want to store data structures known to contain binary data efficiently
281     in files or databases, not when talking to other JSON encoders/decoders.
282    
283     JSON::XS->new->latin1->encode (["\x{89}\x{abc}"]
284     => ["\x{89}\\u0abc"] # (perl syntax, U+abc escaped, U+89 not)
285    
286 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->utf8 ([$enable])
287 root 1.2
288 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_utf8
289    
290 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will encode
291 root 1.16 the JSON result into UTF-8, as required by many protocols, while the
292 root 1.7 C<decode> method expects to be handled an UTF-8-encoded string. Please
293     note that UTF-8-encoded strings do not contain any characters outside the
294 root 1.16 range C<0..255>, they are thus useful for bytewise/binary I/O. In future
295     versions, enabling this option might enable autodetection of the UTF-16
296     and UTF-32 encoding families, as described in RFC4627.
297 root 1.2
298     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will return the JSON
299 root 1.68 string as a (non-encoded) Unicode string, while C<decode> expects thus a
300     Unicode string. Any decoding or encoding (e.g. to UTF-8 or UTF-16) needs
301 root 1.2 to be done yourself, e.g. using the Encode module.
302    
303 root 1.90 See also the section I<ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES> later in this
304     document.
305    
306 root 1.16 Example, output UTF-16BE-encoded JSON:
307    
308     use Encode;
309     $jsontext = encode "UTF-16BE", JSON::XS->new->encode ($object);
310    
311     Example, decode UTF-32LE-encoded JSON:
312    
313     use Encode;
314     $object = JSON::XS->new->decode (decode "UTF-32LE", $jsontext);
315 root 1.12
316 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->pretty ([$enable])
317 root 1.2
318     This enables (or disables) all of the C<indent>, C<space_before> and
319 root 1.3 C<space_after> (and in the future possibly more) flags in one call to
320 root 1.2 generate the most readable (or most compact) form possible.
321    
322 root 1.12 Example, pretty-print some simple structure:
323    
324 root 1.3 my $json = JSON::XS->new->pretty(1)->encode ({a => [1,2]})
325     =>
326     {
327     "a" : [
328     1,
329     2
330     ]
331     }
332    
333 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->indent ([$enable])
334 root 1.2
335 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_indent
336    
337 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will use a multiline
338 root 1.2 format as output, putting every array member or object/hash key-value pair
339 root 1.68 into its own line, indenting them properly.
340 root 1.2
341     If C<$enable> is false, no newlines or indenting will be produced, and the
342 root 1.68 resulting JSON text is guaranteed not to contain any C<newlines>.
343 root 1.2
344 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
345 root 1.2
346 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->space_before ([$enable])
347 root 1.2
348 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_space_before
349    
350 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will add an extra
351 root 1.2 optional space before the C<:> separating keys from values in JSON objects.
352    
353     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not add any extra
354     space at those places.
355    
356 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts. You will also
357     most likely combine this setting with C<space_after>.
358 root 1.2
359 root 1.12 Example, space_before enabled, space_after and indent disabled:
360    
361     {"key" :"value"}
362    
363 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->space_after ([$enable])
364 root 1.2
365 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_space_after
366    
367 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will add an extra
368 root 1.2 optional space after the C<:> separating keys from values in JSON objects
369     and extra whitespace after the C<,> separating key-value pairs and array
370     members.
371    
372     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not add any extra
373     space at those places.
374    
375 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
376 root 1.2
377 root 1.12 Example, space_before and indent disabled, space_after enabled:
378    
379     {"key": "value"}
380    
381 root 1.59 =item $json = $json->relaxed ([$enable])
382    
383 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_relaxed
384    
385 root 1.59 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<decode> will accept some
386     extensions to normal JSON syntax (see below). C<encode> will not be
387     affected in anyway. I<Be aware that this option makes you accept invalid
388     JSON texts as if they were valid!>. I suggest only to use this option to
389     parse application-specific files written by humans (configuration files,
390     resource files etc.)
391    
392     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<decode> will only accept
393     valid JSON texts.
394    
395     Currently accepted extensions are:
396    
397     =over 4
398    
399     =item * list items can have an end-comma
400    
401     JSON I<separates> array elements and key-value pairs with commas. This
402     can be annoying if you write JSON texts manually and want to be able to
403     quickly append elements, so this extension accepts comma at the end of
404     such items not just between them:
405    
406     [
407     1,
408     2, <- this comma not normally allowed
409     ]
410     {
411     "k1": "v1",
412     "k2": "v2", <- this comma not normally allowed
413     }
414    
415 root 1.60 =item * shell-style '#'-comments
416    
417     Whenever JSON allows whitespace, shell-style comments are additionally
418     allowed. They are terminated by the first carriage-return or line-feed
419     character, after which more white-space and comments are allowed.
420    
421     [
422     1, # this comment not allowed in JSON
423     # neither this one...
424     ]
425    
426 root 1.59 =back
427    
428 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->canonical ([$enable])
429 root 1.2
430 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_canonical
431    
432 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will output JSON objects
433 root 1.2 by sorting their keys. This is adding a comparatively high overhead.
434    
435     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will output key-value
436     pairs in the order Perl stores them (which will likely change between runs
437     of the same script).
438    
439     This option is useful if you want the same data structure to be encoded as
440 root 1.16 the same JSON text (given the same overall settings). If it is disabled,
441 root 1.68 the same hash might be encoded differently even if contains the same data,
442 root 1.2 as key-value pairs have no inherent ordering in Perl.
443    
444 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
445 root 1.2
446 root 1.122 This setting has currently no effect on tied hashes.
447    
448 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->allow_nonref ([$enable])
449 root 1.3
450 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_nonref
451    
452 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method can convert a
453 root 1.3 non-reference into its corresponding string, number or null JSON value,
454     which is an extension to RFC4627. Likewise, C<decode> will accept those JSON
455     values instead of croaking.
456    
457     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will croak if it isn't
458 root 1.16 passed an arrayref or hashref, as JSON texts must either be an object
459 root 1.3 or array. Likewise, C<decode> will croak if given something that is not a
460     JSON object or array.
461    
462 root 1.12 Example, encode a Perl scalar as JSON value with enabled C<allow_nonref>,
463     resulting in an invalid JSON text:
464    
465     JSON::XS->new->allow_nonref->encode ("Hello, World!")
466     => "Hello, World!"
467    
468 root 1.99 =item $json = $json->allow_unknown ([$enable])
469    
470     =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_unknown
471    
472     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will I<not> throw an
473     exception when it encounters values it cannot represent in JSON (for
474     example, filehandles) but instead will encode a JSON C<null> value. Note
475     that blessed objects are not included here and are handled separately by
476     c<allow_nonref>.
477    
478     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
479     exception when it encounters anything it cannot encode as JSON.
480    
481     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way, and it is recommended to
482     leave it off unless you know your communications partner.
483    
484 root 1.44 =item $json = $json->allow_blessed ([$enable])
485    
486 root 1.75 =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_blessed
487 root 1.72
488 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will not
489     barf when it encounters a blessed reference. Instead, the value of the
490 root 1.68 B<convert_blessed> option will decide whether C<null> (C<convert_blessed>
491 root 1.76 disabled or no C<TO_JSON> method found) or a representation of the
492     object (C<convert_blessed> enabled and C<TO_JSON> method found) is being
493 root 1.44 encoded. Has no effect on C<decode>.
494    
495     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
496     exception when it encounters a blessed object.
497    
498     =item $json = $json->convert_blessed ([$enable])
499    
500 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_convert_blessed
501    
502 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode>, upon encountering a
503     blessed object, will check for the availability of the C<TO_JSON> method
504     on the object's class. If found, it will be called in scalar context
505     and the resulting scalar will be encoded instead of the object. If no
506     C<TO_JSON> method is found, the value of C<allow_blessed> will decide what
507     to do.
508    
509     The C<TO_JSON> method may safely call die if it wants. If C<TO_JSON>
510     returns other blessed objects, those will be handled in the same
511     way. C<TO_JSON> must take care of not causing an endless recursion cycle
512     (== crash) in this case. The name of C<TO_JSON> was chosen because other
513 root 1.46 methods called by the Perl core (== not by the user of the object) are
514 root 1.78 usually in upper case letters and to avoid collisions with any C<to_json>
515     function or method.
516 root 1.44
517 root 1.45 This setting does not yet influence C<decode> in any way, but in the
518     future, global hooks might get installed that influence C<decode> and are
519     enabled by this setting.
520    
521 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is false, then the C<allow_blessed> setting will decide what
522     to do when a blessed object is found.
523    
524 root 1.52 =item $json = $json->filter_json_object ([$coderef->($hashref)])
525 root 1.51
526     When C<$coderef> is specified, it will be called from C<decode> each
527     time it decodes a JSON object. The only argument is a reference to the
528     newly-created hash. If the code references returns a single scalar (which
529     need not be a reference), this value (i.e. a copy of that scalar to avoid
530     aliasing) is inserted into the deserialised data structure. If it returns
531     an empty list (NOTE: I<not> C<undef>, which is a valid scalar), the
532     original deserialised hash will be inserted. This setting can slow down
533     decoding considerably.
534    
535 root 1.52 When C<$coderef> is omitted or undefined, any existing callback will
536     be removed and C<decode> will not change the deserialised hash in any
537     way.
538 root 1.51
539     Example, convert all JSON objects into the integer 5:
540    
541     my $js = JSON::XS->new->filter_json_object (sub { 5 });
542     # returns [5]
543     $js->decode ('[{}]')
544 root 1.52 # throw an exception because allow_nonref is not enabled
545     # so a lone 5 is not allowed.
546 root 1.51 $js->decode ('{"a":1, "b":2}');
547    
548 root 1.52 =item $json = $json->filter_json_single_key_object ($key [=> $coderef->($value)])
549 root 1.51
550 root 1.52 Works remotely similar to C<filter_json_object>, but is only called for
551     JSON objects having a single key named C<$key>.
552 root 1.51
553     This C<$coderef> is called before the one specified via
554 root 1.52 C<filter_json_object>, if any. It gets passed the single value in the JSON
555     object. If it returns a single value, it will be inserted into the data
556     structure. If it returns nothing (not even C<undef> but the empty list),
557     the callback from C<filter_json_object> will be called next, as if no
558     single-key callback were specified.
559    
560     If C<$coderef> is omitted or undefined, the corresponding callback will be
561     disabled. There can only ever be one callback for a given key.
562 root 1.51
563     As this callback gets called less often then the C<filter_json_object>
564     one, decoding speed will not usually suffer as much. Therefore, single-key
565     objects make excellent targets to serialise Perl objects into, especially
566     as single-key JSON objects are as close to the type-tagged value concept
567 root 1.68 as JSON gets (it's basically an ID/VALUE tuple). Of course, JSON does not
568 root 1.51 support this in any way, so you need to make sure your data never looks
569     like a serialised Perl hash.
570    
571     Typical names for the single object key are C<__class_whatever__>, or
572     C<$__dollars_are_rarely_used__$> or C<}ugly_brace_placement>, or even
573     things like C<__class_md5sum(classname)__>, to reduce the risk of clashing
574     with real hashes.
575    
576     Example, decode JSON objects of the form C<< { "__widget__" => <id> } >>
577     into the corresponding C<< $WIDGET{<id>} >> object:
578    
579     # return whatever is in $WIDGET{5}:
580     JSON::XS
581     ->new
582 root 1.52 ->filter_json_single_key_object (__widget__ => sub {
583     $WIDGET{ $_[0] }
584 root 1.51 })
585     ->decode ('{"__widget__": 5')
586    
587     # this can be used with a TO_JSON method in some "widget" class
588     # for serialisation to json:
589     sub WidgetBase::TO_JSON {
590     my ($self) = @_;
591    
592     unless ($self->{id}) {
593     $self->{id} = ..get..some..id..;
594     $WIDGET{$self->{id}} = $self;
595     }
596    
597     { __widget__ => $self->{id} }
598     }
599    
600 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->shrink ([$enable])
601    
602 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_shrink
603    
604 root 1.7 Perl usually over-allocates memory a bit when allocating space for
605 root 1.24 strings. This flag optionally resizes strings generated by either
606 root 1.7 C<encode> or C<decode> to their minimum size possible. This can save
607 root 1.16 memory when your JSON texts are either very very long or you have many
608 root 1.8 short strings. It will also try to downgrade any strings to octet-form
609     if possible: perl stores strings internally either in an encoding called
610     UTF-X or in octet-form. The latter cannot store everything but uses less
611 root 1.24 space in general (and some buggy Perl or C code might even rely on that
612     internal representation being used).
613 root 1.7
614 root 1.24 The actual definition of what shrink does might change in future versions,
615     but it will always try to save space at the expense of time.
616    
617     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), the string returned by C<encode> will
618     be shrunk-to-fit, while all strings generated by C<decode> will also be
619     shrunk-to-fit.
620 root 1.7
621     If C<$enable> is false, then the normal perl allocation algorithms are used.
622     If you work with your data, then this is likely to be faster.
623    
624     In the future, this setting might control other things, such as converting
625     strings that look like integers or floats into integers or floats
626     internally (there is no difference on the Perl level), saving space.
627    
628 root 1.23 =item $json = $json->max_depth ([$maximum_nesting_depth])
629    
630 root 1.72 =item $max_depth = $json->get_max_depth
631    
632 root 1.28 Sets the maximum nesting level (default C<512>) accepted while encoding
633 root 1.101 or decoding. If a higher nesting level is detected in JSON text or a Perl
634     data structure, then the encoder and decoder will stop and croak at that
635     point.
636 root 1.23
637     Nesting level is defined by number of hash- or arrayrefs that the encoder
638     needs to traverse to reach a given point or the number of C<{> or C<[>
639     characters without their matching closing parenthesis crossed to reach a
640     given character in a string.
641    
642     Setting the maximum depth to one disallows any nesting, so that ensures
643     that the object is only a single hash/object or array.
644    
645 root 1.101 If no argument is given, the highest possible setting will be used, which
646     is rarely useful.
647    
648     Note that nesting is implemented by recursion in C. The default value has
649     been chosen to be as large as typical operating systems allow without
650     crashing.
651 root 1.47
652     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
653    
654     =item $json = $json->max_size ([$maximum_string_size])
655    
656 root 1.72 =item $max_size = $json->get_max_size
657    
658 root 1.47 Set the maximum length a JSON text may have (in bytes) where decoding is
659     being attempted. The default is C<0>, meaning no limit. When C<decode>
660 root 1.101 is called on a string that is longer then this many bytes, it will not
661 root 1.47 attempt to decode the string but throw an exception. This setting has no
662     effect on C<encode> (yet).
663    
664 root 1.101 If no argument is given, the limit check will be deactivated (same as when
665     C<0> is specified).
666 root 1.23
667     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
668    
669 root 1.16 =item $json_text = $json->encode ($perl_scalar)
670 root 1.2
671     Converts the given Perl data structure (a simple scalar or a reference
672     to a hash or array) to its JSON representation. Simple scalars will be
673     converted into JSON string or number sequences, while references to arrays
674     become JSON arrays and references to hashes become JSON objects. Undefined
675     Perl values (e.g. C<undef>) become JSON C<null> values. Neither C<true>
676     nor C<false> values will be generated.
677 root 1.1
678 root 1.16 =item $perl_scalar = $json->decode ($json_text)
679 root 1.1
680 root 1.16 The opposite of C<encode>: expects a JSON text and tries to parse it,
681 root 1.2 returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
682 root 1.1
683 root 1.2 JSON numbers and strings become simple Perl scalars. JSON arrays become
684     Perl arrayrefs and JSON objects become Perl hashrefs. C<true> becomes
685     C<1>, C<false> becomes C<0> and C<null> becomes C<undef>.
686 root 1.1
687 root 1.34 =item ($perl_scalar, $characters) = $json->decode_prefix ($json_text)
688    
689     This works like the C<decode> method, but instead of raising an exception
690     when there is trailing garbage after the first JSON object, it will
691     silently stop parsing there and return the number of characters consumed
692     so far.
693    
694     This is useful if your JSON texts are not delimited by an outer protocol
695     (which is not the brightest thing to do in the first place) and you need
696     to know where the JSON text ends.
697    
698     JSON::XS->new->decode_prefix ("[1] the tail")
699     => ([], 3)
700    
701 root 1.1 =back
702    
703 root 1.23
704 root 1.94 =head1 INCREMENTAL PARSING
705    
706     In some cases, there is the need for incremental parsing of JSON
707     texts. While this module always has to keep both JSON text and resulting
708     Perl data structure in memory at one time, it does allow you to parse a
709     JSON stream incrementally. It does so by accumulating text until it has
710     a full JSON object, which it then can decode. This process is similar to
711 root 1.108 using C<decode_prefix> to see if a full JSON object is available, but
712     is much more efficient (and can be implemented with a minimum of method
713     calls).
714    
715     JSON::XS will only attempt to parse the JSON text once it is sure it
716     has enough text to get a decisive result, using a very simple but
717     truly incremental parser. This means that it sometimes won't stop as
718     early as the full parser, for example, it doesn't detect parenthese
719     mismatches. The only thing it guarantees is that it starts decoding as
720     soon as a syntactically valid JSON text has been seen. This means you need
721     to set resource limits (e.g. C<max_size>) to ensure the parser will stop
722     parsing in the presence if syntax errors.
723 root 1.94
724 root 1.108 The following methods implement this incremental parser.
725 root 1.94
726     =over 4
727    
728     =item [void, scalar or list context] = $json->incr_parse ([$string])
729    
730     This is the central parsing function. It can both append new text and
731     extract objects from the stream accumulated so far (both of these
732     functions are optional).
733    
734     If C<$string> is given, then this string is appended to the already
735     existing JSON fragment stored in the C<$json> object.
736    
737     After that, if the function is called in void context, it will simply
738     return without doing anything further. This can be used to add more text
739     in as many chunks as you want.
740    
741     If the method is called in scalar context, then it will try to extract
742     exactly I<one> JSON object. If that is successful, it will return this
743 root 1.96 object, otherwise it will return C<undef>. If there is a parse error,
744     this method will croak just as C<decode> would do (one can then use
745     C<incr_skip> to skip the errornous part). This is the most common way of
746 root 1.94 using the method.
747    
748     And finally, in list context, it will try to extract as many objects
749     from the stream as it can find and return them, or the empty list
750     otherwise. For this to work, there must be no separators between the JSON
751 root 1.96 objects or arrays, instead they must be concatenated back-to-back. If
752     an error occurs, an exception will be raised as in the scalar context
753     case. Note that in this case, any previously-parsed JSON texts will be
754     lost.
755    
756 root 1.130 Example: Parse some JSON arrays/objects in a given string and return
757     them.
758    
759     my @objs = JSON::XS->new->incr_parse ("[5][7][1,2]");
760    
761 root 1.94 =item $lvalue_string = $json->incr_text
762    
763     This method returns the currently stored JSON fragment as an lvalue, that
764     is, you can manipulate it. This I<only> works when a preceding call to
765     C<incr_parse> in I<scalar context> successfully returned an object. Under
766     all other circumstances you must not call this function (I mean it.
767     although in simple tests it might actually work, it I<will> fail under
768     real world conditions). As a special exception, you can also call this
769     method before having parsed anything.
770    
771     This function is useful in two cases: a) finding the trailing text after a
772     JSON object or b) parsing multiple JSON objects separated by non-JSON text
773     (such as commas).
774    
775 root 1.97 =item $json->incr_skip
776    
777 root 1.114 This will reset the state of the incremental parser and will remove
778     the parsed text from the input buffer so far. This is useful after
779     C<incr_parse> died, in which case the input buffer and incremental parser
780     state is left unchanged, to skip the text parsed so far and to reset the
781     parse state.
782    
783     The difference to C<incr_reset> is that only text until the parse error
784     occured is removed.
785 root 1.97
786 root 1.106 =item $json->incr_reset
787    
788     This completely resets the incremental parser, that is, after this call,
789     it will be as if the parser had never parsed anything.
790    
791 root 1.114 This is useful if you want to repeatedly parse JSON objects and want to
792 root 1.106 ignore any trailing data, which means you have to reset the parser after
793     each successful decode.
794    
795 root 1.94 =back
796    
797     =head2 LIMITATIONS
798    
799     All options that affect decoding are supported, except
800     C<allow_nonref>. The reason for this is that it cannot be made to
801     work sensibly: JSON objects and arrays are self-delimited, i.e. you can concatenate
802     them back to back and still decode them perfectly. This does not hold true
803     for JSON numbers, however.
804    
805     For example, is the string C<1> a single JSON number, or is it simply the
806     start of C<12>? Or is C<12> a single JSON number, or the concatenation
807     of C<1> and C<2>? In neither case you can tell, and this is why JSON::XS
808     takes the conservative route and disallows this case.
809    
810     =head2 EXAMPLES
811    
812     Some examples will make all this clearer. First, a simple example that
813     works similarly to C<decode_prefix>: We want to decode the JSON object at
814     the start of a string and identify the portion after the JSON object:
815    
816     my $text = "[1,2,3] hello";
817    
818     my $json = new JSON::XS;
819    
820     my $obj = $json->incr_parse ($text)
821     or die "expected JSON object or array at beginning of string";
822    
823     my $tail = $json->incr_text;
824     # $tail now contains " hello"
825    
826     Easy, isn't it?
827    
828     Now for a more complicated example: Imagine a hypothetical protocol where
829     you read some requests from a TCP stream, and each request is a JSON
830     array, without any separation between them (in fact, it is often useful to
831     use newlines as "separators", as these get interpreted as whitespace at
832     the start of the JSON text, which makes it possible to test said protocol
833     with C<telnet>...).
834    
835     Here is how you'd do it (it is trivial to write this in an event-based
836     manner):
837    
838     my $json = new JSON::XS;
839    
840     # read some data from the socket
841     while (sysread $socket, my $buf, 4096) {
842    
843     # split and decode as many requests as possible
844     for my $request ($json->incr_parse ($buf)) {
845     # act on the $request
846     }
847     }
848    
849     Another complicated example: Assume you have a string with JSON objects
850     or arrays, all separated by (optional) comma characters (e.g. C<[1],[2],
851     [3]>). To parse them, we have to skip the commas between the JSON texts,
852     and here is where the lvalue-ness of C<incr_text> comes in useful:
853    
854     my $text = "[1],[2], [3]";
855     my $json = new JSON::XS;
856    
857     # void context, so no parsing done
858     $json->incr_parse ($text);
859    
860     # now extract as many objects as possible. note the
861     # use of scalar context so incr_text can be called.
862     while (my $obj = $json->incr_parse) {
863     # do something with $obj
864    
865     # now skip the optional comma
866     $json->incr_text =~ s/^ \s* , //x;
867     }
868    
869     Now lets go for a very complex example: Assume that you have a gigantic
870     JSON array-of-objects, many gigabytes in size, and you want to parse it,
871     but you cannot load it into memory fully (this has actually happened in
872     the real world :).
873    
874     Well, you lost, you have to implement your own JSON parser. But JSON::XS
875     can still help you: You implement a (very simple) array parser and let
876     JSON decode the array elements, which are all full JSON objects on their
877     own (this wouldn't work if the array elements could be JSON numbers, for
878     example):
879    
880     my $json = new JSON::XS;
881    
882     # open the monster
883     open my $fh, "<bigfile.json"
884     or die "bigfile: $!";
885    
886     # first parse the initial "["
887     for (;;) {
888     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
889     or die "read error: $!";
890     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
891    
892     # Exit the loop once we found and removed(!) the initial "[".
893     # In essence, we are (ab-)using the $json object as a simple scalar
894     # we append data to.
895     last if $json->incr_text =~ s/^ \s* \[ //x;
896     }
897    
898     # now we have the skipped the initial "[", so continue
899     # parsing all the elements.
900     for (;;) {
901     # in this loop we read data until we got a single JSON object
902     for (;;) {
903     if (my $obj = $json->incr_parse) {
904     # do something with $obj
905     last;
906     }
907    
908     # add more data
909     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
910     or die "read error: $!";
911     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
912     }
913    
914     # in this loop we read data until we either found and parsed the
915     # separating "," between elements, or the final "]"
916     for (;;) {
917     # first skip whitespace
918     $json->incr_text =~ s/^\s*//;
919    
920     # if we find "]", we are done
921     if ($json->incr_text =~ s/^\]//) {
922     print "finished.\n";
923     exit;
924     }
925    
926     # if we find ",", we can continue with the next element
927     if ($json->incr_text =~ s/^,//) {
928     last;
929     }
930    
931     # if we find anything else, we have a parse error!
932     if (length $json->incr_text) {
933     die "parse error near ", $json->incr_text;
934     }
935    
936     # else add more data
937     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
938     or die "read error: $!";
939     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
940     }
941    
942     This is a complex example, but most of the complexity comes from the fact
943     that we are trying to be correct (bear with me if I am wrong, I never ran
944     the above example :).
945    
946    
947    
948 root 1.10 =head1 MAPPING
949    
950     This section describes how JSON::XS maps Perl values to JSON values and
951     vice versa. These mappings are designed to "do the right thing" in most
952     circumstances automatically, preserving round-tripping characteristics
953     (what you put in comes out as something equivalent).
954    
955     For the more enlightened: note that in the following descriptions,
956 root 1.68 lowercase I<perl> refers to the Perl interpreter, while uppercase I<Perl>
957 root 1.10 refers to the abstract Perl language itself.
958    
959 root 1.39
960 root 1.10 =head2 JSON -> PERL
961    
962     =over 4
963    
964     =item object
965    
966     A JSON object becomes a reference to a hash in Perl. No ordering of object
967 root 1.68 keys is preserved (JSON does not preserve object key ordering itself).
968 root 1.10
969     =item array
970    
971     A JSON array becomes a reference to an array in Perl.
972    
973     =item string
974    
975     A JSON string becomes a string scalar in Perl - Unicode codepoints in JSON
976     are represented by the same codepoints in the Perl string, so no manual
977     decoding is necessary.
978    
979     =item number
980    
981 root 1.56 A JSON number becomes either an integer, numeric (floating point) or
982     string scalar in perl, depending on its range and any fractional parts. On
983     the Perl level, there is no difference between those as Perl handles all
984     the conversion details, but an integer may take slightly less memory and
985 root 1.84 might represent more values exactly than floating point numbers.
986 root 1.56
987     If the number consists of digits only, JSON::XS will try to represent
988     it as an integer value. If that fails, it will try to represent it as
989     a numeric (floating point) value if that is possible without loss of
990 root 1.84 precision. Otherwise it will preserve the number as a string value (in
991     which case you lose roundtripping ability, as the JSON number will be
992     re-encoded toa JSON string).
993 root 1.56
994     Numbers containing a fractional or exponential part will always be
995     represented as numeric (floating point) values, possibly at a loss of
996 root 1.84 precision (in which case you might lose perfect roundtripping ability, but
997     the JSON number will still be re-encoded as a JSON number).
998 root 1.10
999 root 1.131 Note that precision is not accuracy - binary floating point values cannot
1000     represent most decimal fractions exactly, and when converting from and to
1001     floating point, JSON::XS only guarantees precision up to but not including
1002     the leats significant bit.
1003    
1004 root 1.10 =item true, false
1005    
1006 root 1.43 These JSON atoms become C<JSON::XS::true> and C<JSON::XS::false>,
1007     respectively. They are overloaded to act almost exactly like the numbers
1008 root 1.68 C<1> and C<0>. You can check whether a scalar is a JSON boolean by using
1009 root 1.43 the C<JSON::XS::is_bool> function.
1010 root 1.10
1011     =item null
1012    
1013     A JSON null atom becomes C<undef> in Perl.
1014    
1015     =back
1016    
1017 root 1.39
1018 root 1.10 =head2 PERL -> JSON
1019    
1020     The mapping from Perl to JSON is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
1021     truly typeless language, so we can only guess which JSON type is meant by
1022     a Perl value.
1023    
1024     =over 4
1025    
1026     =item hash references
1027    
1028     Perl hash references become JSON objects. As there is no inherent ordering
1029 root 1.25 in hash keys (or JSON objects), they will usually be encoded in a
1030     pseudo-random order that can change between runs of the same program but
1031     stays generally the same within a single run of a program. JSON::XS can
1032     optionally sort the hash keys (determined by the I<canonical> flag), so
1033     the same datastructure will serialise to the same JSON text (given same
1034     settings and version of JSON::XS), but this incurs a runtime overhead
1035     and is only rarely useful, e.g. when you want to compare some JSON text
1036     against another for equality.
1037 root 1.10
1038     =item array references
1039    
1040     Perl array references become JSON arrays.
1041    
1042 root 1.25 =item other references
1043    
1044     Other unblessed references are generally not allowed and will cause an
1045     exception to be thrown, except for references to the integers C<0> and
1046     C<1>, which get turned into C<false> and C<true> atoms in JSON. You can
1047     also use C<JSON::XS::false> and C<JSON::XS::true> to improve readability.
1048    
1049 root 1.104 encode_json [\0, JSON::XS::true] # yields [false,true]
1050 root 1.25
1051 root 1.43 =item JSON::XS::true, JSON::XS::false
1052    
1053     These special values become JSON true and JSON false values,
1054 root 1.61 respectively. You can also use C<\1> and C<\0> directly if you want.
1055 root 1.43
1056 root 1.10 =item blessed objects
1057    
1058 root 1.83 Blessed objects are not directly representable in JSON. See the
1059     C<allow_blessed> and C<convert_blessed> methods on various options on
1060     how to deal with this: basically, you can choose between throwing an
1061     exception, encoding the reference as if it weren't blessed, or provide
1062     your own serialiser method.
1063 root 1.10
1064     =item simple scalars
1065    
1066     Simple Perl scalars (any scalar that is not a reference) are the most
1067     difficult objects to encode: JSON::XS will encode undefined scalars as
1068 root 1.83 JSON C<null> values, scalars that have last been used in a string context
1069     before encoding as JSON strings, and anything else as number value:
1070 root 1.10
1071     # dump as number
1072 root 1.78 encode_json [2] # yields [2]
1073     encode_json [-3.0e17] # yields [-3e+17]
1074     my $value = 5; encode_json [$value] # yields [5]
1075 root 1.10
1076     # used as string, so dump as string
1077     print $value;
1078 root 1.78 encode_json [$value] # yields ["5"]
1079 root 1.10
1080     # undef becomes null
1081 root 1.78 encode_json [undef] # yields [null]
1082 root 1.10
1083 root 1.68 You can force the type to be a JSON string by stringifying it:
1084 root 1.10
1085     my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
1086     "$x"; # stringified
1087     $x .= ""; # another, more awkward way to stringify
1088     print $x; # perl does it for you, too, quite often
1089    
1090 root 1.68 You can force the type to be a JSON number by numifying it:
1091 root 1.10
1092     my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
1093     $x += 0; # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
1094 root 1.68 $x *= 1; # same thing, the choice is yours.
1095 root 1.10
1096 root 1.68 You can not currently force the type in other, less obscure, ways. Tell me
1097 root 1.91 if you need this capability (but don't forget to explain why it's needed
1098 root 1.83 :).
1099 root 1.10
1100 root 1.131 Note that numerical precision has the same meaning as under Perl (so
1101     binary to decimal conversion follows the same rules as in Perl, which
1102     can differ to other languages). Also, your perl interpreter might expose
1103     extensions to the floating point numbers of your platform, such as
1104     infinities or NaN's - these cannot be represented in JSON, and it is an
1105     error to pass those in.
1106    
1107 root 1.10 =back
1108    
1109 root 1.23
1110 root 1.84 =head1 ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES
1111    
1112     The interested reader might have seen a number of flags that signify
1113     encodings or codesets - C<utf8>, C<latin1> and C<ascii>. There seems to be
1114     some confusion on what these do, so here is a short comparison:
1115    
1116 root 1.91 C<utf8> controls whether the JSON text created by C<encode> (and expected
1117 root 1.84 by C<decode>) is UTF-8 encoded or not, while C<latin1> and C<ascii> only
1118 root 1.91 control whether C<encode> escapes character values outside their respective
1119 root 1.84 codeset range. Neither of these flags conflict with each other, although
1120     some combinations make less sense than others.
1121    
1122     Care has been taken to make all flags symmetrical with respect to
1123     C<encode> and C<decode>, that is, texts encoded with any combination of
1124     these flag values will be correctly decoded when the same flags are used
1125     - in general, if you use different flag settings while encoding vs. when
1126     decoding you likely have a bug somewhere.
1127    
1128     Below comes a verbose discussion of these flags. Note that a "codeset" is
1129     simply an abstract set of character-codepoint pairs, while an encoding
1130     takes those codepoint numbers and I<encodes> them, in our case into
1131     octets. Unicode is (among other things) a codeset, UTF-8 is an encoding,
1132     and ISO-8859-1 (= latin 1) and ASCII are both codesets I<and> encodings at
1133     the same time, which can be confusing.
1134    
1135     =over 4
1136    
1137     =item C<utf8> flag disabled
1138    
1139     When C<utf8> is disabled (the default), then C<encode>/C<decode> generate
1140     and expect Unicode strings, that is, characters with high ordinal Unicode
1141     values (> 255) will be encoded as such characters, and likewise such
1142     characters are decoded as-is, no canges to them will be done, except
1143     "(re-)interpreting" them as Unicode codepoints or Unicode characters,
1144     respectively (to Perl, these are the same thing in strings unless you do
1145     funny/weird/dumb stuff).
1146    
1147     This is useful when you want to do the encoding yourself (e.g. when you
1148     want to have UTF-16 encoded JSON texts) or when some other layer does
1149     the encoding for you (for example, when printing to a terminal using a
1150     filehandle that transparently encodes to UTF-8 you certainly do NOT want
1151     to UTF-8 encode your data first and have Perl encode it another time).
1152    
1153     =item C<utf8> flag enabled
1154    
1155     If the C<utf8>-flag is enabled, C<encode>/C<decode> will encode all
1156     characters using the corresponding UTF-8 multi-byte sequence, and will
1157     expect your input strings to be encoded as UTF-8, that is, no "character"
1158     of the input string must have any value > 255, as UTF-8 does not allow
1159     that.
1160    
1161     The C<utf8> flag therefore switches between two modes: disabled means you
1162     will get a Unicode string in Perl, enabled means you get an UTF-8 encoded
1163     octet/binary string in Perl.
1164    
1165     =item C<latin1> or C<ascii> flags enabled
1166    
1167     With C<latin1> (or C<ascii>) enabled, C<encode> will escape characters
1168     with ordinal values > 255 (> 127 with C<ascii>) and encode the remaining
1169     characters as specified by the C<utf8> flag.
1170    
1171     If C<utf8> is disabled, then the result is also correctly encoded in those
1172     character sets (as both are proper subsets of Unicode, meaning that a
1173     Unicode string with all character values < 256 is the same thing as a
1174     ISO-8859-1 string, and a Unicode string with all character values < 128 is
1175     the same thing as an ASCII string in Perl).
1176    
1177     If C<utf8> is enabled, you still get a correct UTF-8-encoded string,
1178     regardless of these flags, just some more characters will be escaped using
1179     C<\uXXXX> then before.
1180    
1181     Note that ISO-8859-1-I<encoded> strings are not compatible with UTF-8
1182     encoding, while ASCII-encoded strings are. That is because the ISO-8859-1
1183     encoding is NOT a subset of UTF-8 (despite the ISO-8859-1 I<codeset> being
1184     a subset of Unicode), while ASCII is.
1185    
1186     Surprisingly, C<decode> will ignore these flags and so treat all input
1187     values as governed by the C<utf8> flag. If it is disabled, this allows you
1188     to decode ISO-8859-1- and ASCII-encoded strings, as both strict subsets of
1189     Unicode. If it is enabled, you can correctly decode UTF-8 encoded strings.
1190    
1191     So neither C<latin1> nor C<ascii> are incompatible with the C<utf8> flag -
1192     they only govern when the JSON output engine escapes a character or not.
1193    
1194     The main use for C<latin1> is to relatively efficiently store binary data
1195     as JSON, at the expense of breaking compatibility with most JSON decoders.
1196    
1197     The main use for C<ascii> is to force the output to not contain characters
1198     with values > 127, which means you can interpret the resulting string
1199     as UTF-8, ISO-8859-1, ASCII, KOI8-R or most about any character set and
1200     8-bit-encoding, and still get the same data structure back. This is useful
1201     when your channel for JSON transfer is not 8-bit clean or the encoding
1202     might be mangled in between (e.g. in mail), and works because ASCII is a
1203     proper subset of most 8-bit and multibyte encodings in use in the world.
1204    
1205     =back
1206    
1207    
1208 root 1.115 =head2 JSON and ECMAscript
1209    
1210     JSON syntax is based on how literals are represented in javascript (the
1211     not-standardised predecessor of ECMAscript) which is presumably why it is
1212     called "JavaScript Object Notation".
1213    
1214     However, JSON is not a subset (and also not a superset of course) of
1215     ECMAscript (the standard) or javascript (whatever browsers actually
1216     implement).
1217    
1218     If you want to use javascript's C<eval> function to "parse" JSON, you
1219     might run into parse errors for valid JSON texts, or the resulting data
1220     structure might not be queryable:
1221    
1222     One of the problems is that U+2028 and U+2029 are valid characters inside
1223     JSON strings, but are not allowed in ECMAscript string literals, so the
1224     following Perl fragment will not output something that can be guaranteed
1225     to be parsable by javascript's C<eval>:
1226    
1227     use JSON::XS;
1228    
1229     print encode_json [chr 0x2028];
1230    
1231     The right fix for this is to use a proper JSON parser in your javascript
1232 root 1.117 programs, and not rely on C<eval> (see for example Douglas Crockford's
1233     F<json2.js> parser).
1234 root 1.115
1235     If this is not an option, you can, as a stop-gap measure, simply encode to
1236     ASCII-only JSON:
1237    
1238     use JSON::XS;
1239    
1240     print JSON::XS->new->ascii->encode ([chr 0x2028]);
1241    
1242 root 1.117 Note that this will enlarge the resulting JSON text quite a bit if you
1243     have many non-ASCII characters. You might be tempted to run some regexes
1244     to only escape U+2028 and U+2029, e.g.:
1245 root 1.115
1246 root 1.117 # DO NOT USE THIS!
1247 root 1.115 my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ([chr 0x2028]);
1248     $json =~ s/\xe2\x80\xa8/\\u2028/g; # escape U+2028
1249     $json =~ s/\xe2\x80\xa9/\\u2029/g; # escape U+2029
1250     print $json;
1251    
1252 root 1.117 Note that I<this is a bad idea>: the above only works for U+2028 and
1253     U+2029 and thus only for fully ECMAscript-compliant parsers. Many existing
1254     javascript implementations, however, have issues with other characters as
1255     well - using C<eval> naively simply I<will> cause problems.
1256 root 1.116
1257 root 1.115 Another problem is that some javascript implementations reserve
1258     some property names for their own purposes (which probably makes
1259     them non-ECMAscript-compliant). For example, Iceweasel reserves the
1260     C<__proto__> property name for it's own purposes.
1261    
1262     If that is a problem, you could parse try to filter the resulting JSON
1263     output for these property strings, e.g.:
1264    
1265     $json =~ s/"__proto__"\s*:/"__proto__renamed":/g;
1266    
1267     This works because C<__proto__> is not valid outside of strings, so every
1268     occurence of C<"__proto__"\s*:> must be a string used as property name.
1269    
1270     If you know of other incompatibilities, please let me know.
1271    
1272    
1273 root 1.39 =head2 JSON and YAML
1274    
1275 root 1.80 You often hear that JSON is a subset of YAML. This is, however, a mass
1276 root 1.90 hysteria(*) and very far from the truth (as of the time of this writing),
1277     so let me state it clearly: I<in general, there is no way to configure
1278     JSON::XS to output a data structure as valid YAML> that works in all
1279     cases.
1280 root 1.39
1281 root 1.41 If you really must use JSON::XS to generate YAML, you should use this
1282 root 1.39 algorithm (subject to change in future versions):
1283    
1284     my $to_yaml = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after (1);
1285     my $yaml = $to_yaml->encode ($ref) . "\n";
1286    
1287 root 1.83 This will I<usually> generate JSON texts that also parse as valid
1288 root 1.41 YAML. Please note that YAML has hardcoded limits on (simple) object key
1289 root 1.80 lengths that JSON doesn't have and also has different and incompatible
1290 root 1.124 unicode character escape syntax, so you should make sure that your hash
1291     keys are noticeably shorter than the 1024 "stream characters" YAML allows
1292     and that you do not have characters with codepoint values outside the
1293     Unicode BMP (basic multilingual page). YAML also does not allow C<\/>
1294     sequences in strings (which JSON::XS does not I<currently> generate, but
1295     other JSON generators might).
1296 root 1.39
1297 root 1.83 There might be other incompatibilities that I am not aware of (or the YAML
1298     specification has been changed yet again - it does so quite often). In
1299     general you should not try to generate YAML with a JSON generator or vice
1300     versa, or try to parse JSON with a YAML parser or vice versa: chances are
1301     high that you will run into severe interoperability problems when you
1302     least expect it.
1303 root 1.39
1304 root 1.82 =over 4
1305    
1306     =item (*)
1307    
1308 root 1.90 I have been pressured multiple times by Brian Ingerson (one of the
1309     authors of the YAML specification) to remove this paragraph, despite him
1310     acknowledging that the actual incompatibilities exist. As I was personally
1311     bitten by this "JSON is YAML" lie, I refused and said I will continue to
1312     educate people about these issues, so others do not run into the same
1313     problem again and again. After this, Brian called me a (quote)I<complete
1314     and worthless idiot>(unquote).
1315    
1316     In my opinion, instead of pressuring and insulting people who actually
1317     clarify issues with YAML and the wrong statements of some of its
1318     proponents, I would kindly suggest reading the JSON spec (which is not
1319     that difficult or long) and finally make YAML compatible to it, and
1320     educating users about the changes, instead of spreading lies about the
1321     real compatibility for many I<years> and trying to silence people who
1322     point out that it isn't true.
1323 root 1.82
1324 root 1.124 Addendum/2009: the YAML 1.2 spec is still incomaptible with JSON, even
1325     though the incompatibilities have been documented (and are known to
1326     Brian) for many years and the spec makes explicit claims that YAML is a
1327     superset of JSON. It would be so easy to fix, but apparently, bullying and
1328     corrupting userdata is so much easier.
1329    
1330 root 1.82 =back
1331    
1332 root 1.39
1333 root 1.3 =head2 SPEED
1334    
1335 root 1.4 It seems that JSON::XS is surprisingly fast, as shown in the following
1336     tables. They have been generated with the help of the C<eg/bench> program
1337     in the JSON::XS distribution, to make it easy to compare on your own
1338     system.
1339    
1340 root 1.88 First comes a comparison between various modules using
1341     a very short single-line JSON string (also available at
1342 root 1.89 L<http://dist.schmorp.de/misc/json/short.json>).
1343 root 1.18
1344 root 1.100 {"method": "handleMessage", "params": ["user1",
1345     "we were just talking"], "id": null, "array":[1,11,234,-5,1e5,1e7,
1346 root 1.129 1, 0]}
1347 root 1.18
1348 root 1.39 It shows the number of encodes/decodes per second (JSON::XS uses
1349     the functional interface, while JSON::XS/2 uses the OO interface
1350     with pretty-printing and hashkey sorting enabled, JSON::XS/3 enables
1351 root 1.129 shrink. JSON::DWIW/DS uses the deserialise function, while JSON::DWIW::FJ
1352     uses the from_json method). Higher is better:
1353 root 1.4
1354 root 1.129 module | encode | decode |
1355     --------------|------------|------------|
1356     JSON::DWIW/DS | 86302.551 | 102300.098 |
1357     JSON::DWIW/FJ | 86302.551 | 75983.768 |
1358     JSON::PP | 15827.562 | 6638.658 |
1359     JSON::Syck | 63358.066 | 47662.545 |
1360     JSON::XS | 511500.488 | 511500.488 |
1361     JSON::XS/2 | 291271.111 | 388361.481 |
1362     JSON::XS/3 | 361577.931 | 361577.931 |
1363     Storable | 66788.280 | 265462.278 |
1364     --------------+------------+------------+
1365    
1366     That is, JSON::XS is almost six times faster than JSON::DWIW on encoding,
1367     about five times faster on decoding, and over thirty to seventy times
1368     faster than JSON's pure perl implementation. It also compares favourably
1369     to Storable for small amounts of data.
1370 root 1.4
1371 root 1.13 Using a longer test string (roughly 18KB, generated from Yahoo! Locals
1372 root 1.89 search API (L<http://dist.schmorp.de/misc/json/long.json>).
1373 root 1.4
1374 root 1.129 module | encode | decode |
1375     --------------|------------|------------|
1376     JSON::DWIW/DS | 1647.927 | 2673.916 |
1377     JSON::DWIW/FJ | 1630.249 | 2596.128 |
1378     JSON::PP | 400.640 | 62.311 |
1379     JSON::Syck | 1481.040 | 1524.869 |
1380     JSON::XS | 20661.596 | 9541.183 |
1381     JSON::XS/2 | 10683.403 | 9416.938 |
1382     JSON::XS/3 | 20661.596 | 9400.054 |
1383     Storable | 19765.806 | 10000.725 |
1384     --------------+------------+------------+
1385 root 1.4
1386 root 1.40 Again, JSON::XS leads by far (except for Storable which non-surprisingly
1387 root 1.129 decodes a bit faster).
1388 root 1.4
1389 root 1.68 On large strings containing lots of high Unicode characters, some modules
1390 root 1.18 (such as JSON::PC) seem to decode faster than JSON::XS, but the result
1391 root 1.68 will be broken due to missing (or wrong) Unicode handling. Others refuse
1392 root 1.18 to decode or encode properly, so it was impossible to prepare a fair
1393     comparison table for that case.
1394 root 1.13
1395 root 1.11
1396 root 1.23 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1397    
1398     When you are using JSON in a protocol, talking to untrusted potentially
1399     hostile creatures requires relatively few measures.
1400    
1401     First of all, your JSON decoder should be secure, that is, should not have
1402     any buffer overflows. Obviously, this module should ensure that and I am
1403     trying hard on making that true, but you never know.
1404    
1405     Second, you need to avoid resource-starving attacks. That means you should
1406     limit the size of JSON texts you accept, or make sure then when your
1407 root 1.68 resources run out, that's just fine (e.g. by using a separate process that
1408 root 1.23 can crash safely). The size of a JSON text in octets or characters is
1409     usually a good indication of the size of the resources required to decode
1410 root 1.47 it into a Perl structure. While JSON::XS can check the size of the JSON
1411     text, it might be too late when you already have it in memory, so you
1412     might want to check the size before you accept the string.
1413 root 1.23
1414     Third, JSON::XS recurses using the C stack when decoding objects and
1415     arrays. The C stack is a limited resource: for instance, on my amd64
1416 root 1.28 machine with 8MB of stack size I can decode around 180k nested arrays but
1417     only 14k nested JSON objects (due to perl itself recursing deeply on croak
1418 root 1.79 to free the temporary). If that is exceeded, the program crashes. To be
1419 root 1.28 conservative, the default nesting limit is set to 512. If your process
1420     has a smaller stack, you should adjust this setting accordingly with the
1421     C<max_depth> method.
1422 root 1.23
1423 root 1.86 Something else could bomb you, too, that I forgot to think of. In that
1424     case, you get to keep the pieces. I am always open for hints, though...
1425    
1426     Also keep in mind that JSON::XS might leak contents of your Perl data
1427     structures in its error messages, so when you serialise sensitive
1428     information you might want to make sure that exceptions thrown by JSON::XS
1429     will not end up in front of untrusted eyes.
1430 root 1.23
1431 root 1.42 If you are using JSON::XS to return packets to consumption
1432 root 1.68 by JavaScript scripts in a browser you should have a look at
1433 root 1.127 L<http://blog.archive.jpsykes.com/47/practical-csrf-and-json-security/> to
1434     see whether you are vulnerable to some common attack vectors (which really
1435     are browser design bugs, but it is still you who will have to deal with
1436     it, as major browser developers care only for features, not about getting
1437     security right).
1438 root 1.42
1439 root 1.11
1440 root 1.64 =head1 THREADS
1441    
1442 root 1.68 This module is I<not> guaranteed to be thread safe and there are no
1443 root 1.64 plans to change this until Perl gets thread support (as opposed to the
1444     horribly slow so-called "threads" which are simply slow and bloated
1445 root 1.91 process simulations - use fork, it's I<much> faster, cheaper, better).
1446 root 1.64
1447 root 1.68 (It might actually work, but you have been warned).
1448 root 1.64
1449    
1450 root 1.4 =head1 BUGS
1451    
1452     While the goal of this module is to be correct, that unfortunately does
1453 root 1.103 not mean it's bug-free, only that I think its design is bug-free. If you
1454     keep reporting bugs they will be fixed swiftly, though.
1455 root 1.4
1456 root 1.64 Please refrain from using rt.cpan.org or any other bug reporting
1457     service. I put the contact address into my modules for a reason.
1458    
1459 root 1.2 =cut
1460    
1461 root 1.53 our $true = do { bless \(my $dummy = 1), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
1462     our $false = do { bless \(my $dummy = 0), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
1463 root 1.43
1464     sub true() { $true }
1465     sub false() { $false }
1466    
1467     sub is_bool($) {
1468     UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::XS::Boolean"
1469 root 1.44 # or UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::Literal"
1470 root 1.43 }
1471    
1472     XSLoader::load "JSON::XS", $VERSION;
1473    
1474     package JSON::XS::Boolean;
1475    
1476     use overload
1477     "0+" => sub { ${$_[0]} },
1478     "++" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} + 1 },
1479     "--" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} - 1 },
1480     fallback => 1;
1481 root 1.25
1482 root 1.2 1;
1483    
1484 root 1.93 =head1 SEE ALSO
1485    
1486     The F<json_xs> command line utility for quick experiments.
1487    
1488 root 1.1 =head1 AUTHOR
1489    
1490     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1491     http://home.schmorp.de/
1492    
1493     =cut
1494