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Revision: 1.139
Committed: Thu May 23 09:31:32 2013 UTC (10 years, 11 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
CVS Tags: rel-2_34
Changes since 1.138: +21 -2 lines
Log Message:
2.34

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 1.139 our $VERSION = 2.34;
107 root 1.43 our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
108 root 1.1
109 root 1.78 our @EXPORT = qw(encode_json decode_json to_json from_json);
110    
111     sub to_json($) {
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 root 1.139 of the same script, and can change even within the same run from 5.18
438     onwards).
439 root 1.2
440     This option is useful if you want the same data structure to be encoded as
441 root 1.16 the same JSON text (given the same overall settings). If it is disabled,
442 root 1.68 the same hash might be encoded differently even if contains the same data,
443 root 1.2 as key-value pairs have no inherent ordering in Perl.
444    
445 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
446 root 1.2
447 root 1.122 This setting has currently no effect on tied hashes.
448    
449 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->allow_nonref ([$enable])
450 root 1.3
451 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_nonref
452    
453 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method can convert a
454 root 1.3 non-reference into its corresponding string, number or null JSON value,
455     which is an extension to RFC4627. Likewise, C<decode> will accept those JSON
456     values instead of croaking.
457    
458     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will croak if it isn't
459 root 1.16 passed an arrayref or hashref, as JSON texts must either be an object
460 root 1.3 or array. Likewise, C<decode> will croak if given something that is not a
461     JSON object or array.
462    
463 root 1.12 Example, encode a Perl scalar as JSON value with enabled C<allow_nonref>,
464     resulting in an invalid JSON text:
465    
466     JSON::XS->new->allow_nonref->encode ("Hello, World!")
467     => "Hello, World!"
468    
469 root 1.99 =item $json = $json->allow_unknown ([$enable])
470    
471     =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_unknown
472    
473     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will I<not> throw an
474     exception when it encounters values it cannot represent in JSON (for
475     example, filehandles) but instead will encode a JSON C<null> value. Note
476     that blessed objects are not included here and are handled separately by
477     c<allow_nonref>.
478    
479     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
480     exception when it encounters anything it cannot encode as JSON.
481    
482     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way, and it is recommended to
483     leave it off unless you know your communications partner.
484    
485 root 1.44 =item $json = $json->allow_blessed ([$enable])
486    
487 root 1.75 =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_blessed
488 root 1.72
489 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will not
490     barf when it encounters a blessed reference. Instead, the value of the
491 root 1.68 B<convert_blessed> option will decide whether C<null> (C<convert_blessed>
492 root 1.76 disabled or no C<TO_JSON> method found) or a representation of the
493     object (C<convert_blessed> enabled and C<TO_JSON> method found) is being
494 root 1.44 encoded. Has no effect on C<decode>.
495    
496     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
497     exception when it encounters a blessed object.
498    
499     =item $json = $json->convert_blessed ([$enable])
500    
501 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_convert_blessed
502    
503 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode>, upon encountering a
504     blessed object, will check for the availability of the C<TO_JSON> method
505     on the object's class. If found, it will be called in scalar context
506     and the resulting scalar will be encoded instead of the object. If no
507     C<TO_JSON> method is found, the value of C<allow_blessed> will decide what
508     to do.
509    
510     The C<TO_JSON> method may safely call die if it wants. If C<TO_JSON>
511     returns other blessed objects, those will be handled in the same
512     way. C<TO_JSON> must take care of not causing an endless recursion cycle
513     (== crash) in this case. The name of C<TO_JSON> was chosen because other
514 root 1.46 methods called by the Perl core (== not by the user of the object) are
515 root 1.78 usually in upper case letters and to avoid collisions with any C<to_json>
516     function or method.
517 root 1.44
518 root 1.45 This setting does not yet influence C<decode> in any way, but in the
519     future, global hooks might get installed that influence C<decode> and are
520     enabled by this setting.
521    
522 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is false, then the C<allow_blessed> setting will decide what
523     to do when a blessed object is found.
524    
525 root 1.52 =item $json = $json->filter_json_object ([$coderef->($hashref)])
526 root 1.51
527     When C<$coderef> is specified, it will be called from C<decode> each
528     time it decodes a JSON object. The only argument is a reference to the
529     newly-created hash. If the code references returns a single scalar (which
530     need not be a reference), this value (i.e. a copy of that scalar to avoid
531     aliasing) is inserted into the deserialised data structure. If it returns
532     an empty list (NOTE: I<not> C<undef>, which is a valid scalar), the
533     original deserialised hash will be inserted. This setting can slow down
534     decoding considerably.
535    
536 root 1.52 When C<$coderef> is omitted or undefined, any existing callback will
537     be removed and C<decode> will not change the deserialised hash in any
538     way.
539 root 1.51
540     Example, convert all JSON objects into the integer 5:
541    
542     my $js = JSON::XS->new->filter_json_object (sub { 5 });
543     # returns [5]
544     $js->decode ('[{}]')
545 root 1.52 # throw an exception because allow_nonref is not enabled
546     # so a lone 5 is not allowed.
547 root 1.51 $js->decode ('{"a":1, "b":2}');
548    
549 root 1.52 =item $json = $json->filter_json_single_key_object ($key [=> $coderef->($value)])
550 root 1.51
551 root 1.52 Works remotely similar to C<filter_json_object>, but is only called for
552     JSON objects having a single key named C<$key>.
553 root 1.51
554     This C<$coderef> is called before the one specified via
555 root 1.52 C<filter_json_object>, if any. It gets passed the single value in the JSON
556     object. If it returns a single value, it will be inserted into the data
557     structure. If it returns nothing (not even C<undef> but the empty list),
558     the callback from C<filter_json_object> will be called next, as if no
559     single-key callback were specified.
560    
561     If C<$coderef> is omitted or undefined, the corresponding callback will be
562     disabled. There can only ever be one callback for a given key.
563 root 1.51
564     As this callback gets called less often then the C<filter_json_object>
565     one, decoding speed will not usually suffer as much. Therefore, single-key
566     objects make excellent targets to serialise Perl objects into, especially
567     as single-key JSON objects are as close to the type-tagged value concept
568 root 1.68 as JSON gets (it's basically an ID/VALUE tuple). Of course, JSON does not
569 root 1.51 support this in any way, so you need to make sure your data never looks
570     like a serialised Perl hash.
571    
572     Typical names for the single object key are C<__class_whatever__>, or
573     C<$__dollars_are_rarely_used__$> or C<}ugly_brace_placement>, or even
574     things like C<__class_md5sum(classname)__>, to reduce the risk of clashing
575     with real hashes.
576    
577     Example, decode JSON objects of the form C<< { "__widget__" => <id> } >>
578     into the corresponding C<< $WIDGET{<id>} >> object:
579    
580     # return whatever is in $WIDGET{5}:
581     JSON::XS
582     ->new
583 root 1.52 ->filter_json_single_key_object (__widget__ => sub {
584     $WIDGET{ $_[0] }
585 root 1.51 })
586     ->decode ('{"__widget__": 5')
587    
588     # this can be used with a TO_JSON method in some "widget" class
589     # for serialisation to json:
590     sub WidgetBase::TO_JSON {
591     my ($self) = @_;
592    
593     unless ($self->{id}) {
594     $self->{id} = ..get..some..id..;
595     $WIDGET{$self->{id}} = $self;
596     }
597    
598     { __widget__ => $self->{id} }
599     }
600    
601 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->shrink ([$enable])
602    
603 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_shrink
604    
605 root 1.7 Perl usually over-allocates memory a bit when allocating space for
606 root 1.24 strings. This flag optionally resizes strings generated by either
607 root 1.7 C<encode> or C<decode> to their minimum size possible. This can save
608 root 1.16 memory when your JSON texts are either very very long or you have many
609 root 1.8 short strings. It will also try to downgrade any strings to octet-form
610     if possible: perl stores strings internally either in an encoding called
611     UTF-X or in octet-form. The latter cannot store everything but uses less
612 root 1.24 space in general (and some buggy Perl or C code might even rely on that
613     internal representation being used).
614 root 1.7
615 root 1.24 The actual definition of what shrink does might change in future versions,
616     but it will always try to save space at the expense of time.
617    
618     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), the string returned by C<encode> will
619     be shrunk-to-fit, while all strings generated by C<decode> will also be
620     shrunk-to-fit.
621 root 1.7
622     If C<$enable> is false, then the normal perl allocation algorithms are used.
623     If you work with your data, then this is likely to be faster.
624    
625     In the future, this setting might control other things, such as converting
626     strings that look like integers or floats into integers or floats
627     internally (there is no difference on the Perl level), saving space.
628    
629 root 1.23 =item $json = $json->max_depth ([$maximum_nesting_depth])
630    
631 root 1.72 =item $max_depth = $json->get_max_depth
632    
633 root 1.28 Sets the maximum nesting level (default C<512>) accepted while encoding
634 root 1.101 or decoding. If a higher nesting level is detected in JSON text or a Perl
635     data structure, then the encoder and decoder will stop and croak at that
636     point.
637 root 1.23
638     Nesting level is defined by number of hash- or arrayrefs that the encoder
639     needs to traverse to reach a given point or the number of C<{> or C<[>
640     characters without their matching closing parenthesis crossed to reach a
641     given character in a string.
642    
643     Setting the maximum depth to one disallows any nesting, so that ensures
644     that the object is only a single hash/object or array.
645    
646 root 1.101 If no argument is given, the highest possible setting will be used, which
647     is rarely useful.
648    
649     Note that nesting is implemented by recursion in C. The default value has
650     been chosen to be as large as typical operating systems allow without
651     crashing.
652 root 1.47
653     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
654    
655     =item $json = $json->max_size ([$maximum_string_size])
656    
657 root 1.72 =item $max_size = $json->get_max_size
658    
659 root 1.47 Set the maximum length a JSON text may have (in bytes) where decoding is
660     being attempted. The default is C<0>, meaning no limit. When C<decode>
661 root 1.101 is called on a string that is longer then this many bytes, it will not
662 root 1.47 attempt to decode the string but throw an exception. This setting has no
663     effect on C<encode> (yet).
664    
665 root 1.101 If no argument is given, the limit check will be deactivated (same as when
666     C<0> is specified).
667 root 1.23
668     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
669    
670 root 1.16 =item $json_text = $json->encode ($perl_scalar)
671 root 1.2
672     Converts the given Perl data structure (a simple scalar or a reference
673     to a hash or array) to its JSON representation. Simple scalars will be
674     converted into JSON string or number sequences, while references to arrays
675     become JSON arrays and references to hashes become JSON objects. Undefined
676     Perl values (e.g. C<undef>) become JSON C<null> values. Neither C<true>
677     nor C<false> values will be generated.
678 root 1.1
679 root 1.16 =item $perl_scalar = $json->decode ($json_text)
680 root 1.1
681 root 1.16 The opposite of C<encode>: expects a JSON text and tries to parse it,
682 root 1.2 returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
683 root 1.1
684 root 1.2 JSON numbers and strings become simple Perl scalars. JSON arrays become
685     Perl arrayrefs and JSON objects become Perl hashrefs. C<true> becomes
686     C<1>, C<false> becomes C<0> and C<null> becomes C<undef>.
687 root 1.1
688 root 1.34 =item ($perl_scalar, $characters) = $json->decode_prefix ($json_text)
689    
690     This works like the C<decode> method, but instead of raising an exception
691     when there is trailing garbage after the first JSON object, it will
692     silently stop parsing there and return the number of characters consumed
693     so far.
694    
695     This is useful if your JSON texts are not delimited by an outer protocol
696     (which is not the brightest thing to do in the first place) and you need
697     to know where the JSON text ends.
698    
699     JSON::XS->new->decode_prefix ("[1] the tail")
700     => ([], 3)
701    
702 root 1.1 =back
703    
704 root 1.23
705 root 1.94 =head1 INCREMENTAL PARSING
706    
707     In some cases, there is the need for incremental parsing of JSON
708     texts. While this module always has to keep both JSON text and resulting
709     Perl data structure in memory at one time, it does allow you to parse a
710     JSON stream incrementally. It does so by accumulating text until it has
711     a full JSON object, which it then can decode. This process is similar to
712 root 1.108 using C<decode_prefix> to see if a full JSON object is available, but
713     is much more efficient (and can be implemented with a minimum of method
714     calls).
715    
716     JSON::XS will only attempt to parse the JSON text once it is sure it
717     has enough text to get a decisive result, using a very simple but
718     truly incremental parser. This means that it sometimes won't stop as
719 root 1.134 early as the full parser, for example, it doesn't detect mismatched
720     parentheses. The only thing it guarantees is that it starts decoding as
721 root 1.108 soon as a syntactically valid JSON text has been seen. This means you need
722     to set resource limits (e.g. C<max_size>) to ensure the parser will stop
723     parsing in the presence if syntax errors.
724 root 1.94
725 root 1.108 The following methods implement this incremental parser.
726 root 1.94
727     =over 4
728    
729     =item [void, scalar or list context] = $json->incr_parse ([$string])
730    
731     This is the central parsing function. It can both append new text and
732     extract objects from the stream accumulated so far (both of these
733     functions are optional).
734    
735     If C<$string> is given, then this string is appended to the already
736     existing JSON fragment stored in the C<$json> object.
737    
738     After that, if the function is called in void context, it will simply
739     return without doing anything further. This can be used to add more text
740     in as many chunks as you want.
741    
742     If the method is called in scalar context, then it will try to extract
743     exactly I<one> JSON object. If that is successful, it will return this
744 root 1.96 object, otherwise it will return C<undef>. If there is a parse error,
745     this method will croak just as C<decode> would do (one can then use
746     C<incr_skip> to skip the errornous part). This is the most common way of
747 root 1.94 using the method.
748    
749     And finally, in list context, it will try to extract as many objects
750     from the stream as it can find and return them, or the empty list
751     otherwise. For this to work, there must be no separators between the JSON
752 root 1.96 objects or arrays, instead they must be concatenated back-to-back. If
753     an error occurs, an exception will be raised as in the scalar context
754     case. Note that in this case, any previously-parsed JSON texts will be
755     lost.
756    
757 root 1.130 Example: Parse some JSON arrays/objects in a given string and return
758     them.
759    
760     my @objs = JSON::XS->new->incr_parse ("[5][7][1,2]");
761    
762 root 1.94 =item $lvalue_string = $json->incr_text
763    
764     This method returns the currently stored JSON fragment as an lvalue, that
765     is, you can manipulate it. This I<only> works when a preceding call to
766     C<incr_parse> in I<scalar context> successfully returned an object. Under
767     all other circumstances you must not call this function (I mean it.
768     although in simple tests it might actually work, it I<will> fail under
769     real world conditions). As a special exception, you can also call this
770     method before having parsed anything.
771    
772     This function is useful in two cases: a) finding the trailing text after a
773     JSON object or b) parsing multiple JSON objects separated by non-JSON text
774     (such as commas).
775    
776 root 1.97 =item $json->incr_skip
777    
778 root 1.114 This will reset the state of the incremental parser and will remove
779     the parsed text from the input buffer so far. This is useful after
780     C<incr_parse> died, in which case the input buffer and incremental parser
781     state is left unchanged, to skip the text parsed so far and to reset the
782     parse state.
783    
784     The difference to C<incr_reset> is that only text until the parse error
785     occured is removed.
786 root 1.97
787 root 1.106 =item $json->incr_reset
788    
789     This completely resets the incremental parser, that is, after this call,
790     it will be as if the parser had never parsed anything.
791    
792 root 1.114 This is useful if you want to repeatedly parse JSON objects and want to
793 root 1.106 ignore any trailing data, which means you have to reset the parser after
794     each successful decode.
795    
796 root 1.94 =back
797    
798     =head2 LIMITATIONS
799    
800     All options that affect decoding are supported, except
801     C<allow_nonref>. The reason for this is that it cannot be made to
802     work sensibly: JSON objects and arrays are self-delimited, i.e. you can concatenate
803     them back to back and still decode them perfectly. This does not hold true
804     for JSON numbers, however.
805    
806     For example, is the string C<1> a single JSON number, or is it simply the
807     start of C<12>? Or is C<12> a single JSON number, or the concatenation
808     of C<1> and C<2>? In neither case you can tell, and this is why JSON::XS
809     takes the conservative route and disallows this case.
810    
811     =head2 EXAMPLES
812    
813     Some examples will make all this clearer. First, a simple example that
814     works similarly to C<decode_prefix>: We want to decode the JSON object at
815     the start of a string and identify the portion after the JSON object:
816    
817     my $text = "[1,2,3] hello";
818    
819     my $json = new JSON::XS;
820    
821     my $obj = $json->incr_parse ($text)
822     or die "expected JSON object or array at beginning of string";
823    
824     my $tail = $json->incr_text;
825     # $tail now contains " hello"
826    
827     Easy, isn't it?
828    
829     Now for a more complicated example: Imagine a hypothetical protocol where
830     you read some requests from a TCP stream, and each request is a JSON
831     array, without any separation between them (in fact, it is often useful to
832     use newlines as "separators", as these get interpreted as whitespace at
833     the start of the JSON text, which makes it possible to test said protocol
834     with C<telnet>...).
835    
836     Here is how you'd do it (it is trivial to write this in an event-based
837     manner):
838    
839     my $json = new JSON::XS;
840    
841     # read some data from the socket
842     while (sysread $socket, my $buf, 4096) {
843    
844     # split and decode as many requests as possible
845     for my $request ($json->incr_parse ($buf)) {
846     # act on the $request
847     }
848     }
849    
850     Another complicated example: Assume you have a string with JSON objects
851     or arrays, all separated by (optional) comma characters (e.g. C<[1],[2],
852     [3]>). To parse them, we have to skip the commas between the JSON texts,
853     and here is where the lvalue-ness of C<incr_text> comes in useful:
854    
855     my $text = "[1],[2], [3]";
856     my $json = new JSON::XS;
857    
858     # void context, so no parsing done
859     $json->incr_parse ($text);
860    
861     # now extract as many objects as possible. note the
862     # use of scalar context so incr_text can be called.
863     while (my $obj = $json->incr_parse) {
864     # do something with $obj
865    
866     # now skip the optional comma
867     $json->incr_text =~ s/^ \s* , //x;
868     }
869    
870     Now lets go for a very complex example: Assume that you have a gigantic
871     JSON array-of-objects, many gigabytes in size, and you want to parse it,
872     but you cannot load it into memory fully (this has actually happened in
873     the real world :).
874    
875     Well, you lost, you have to implement your own JSON parser. But JSON::XS
876     can still help you: You implement a (very simple) array parser and let
877     JSON decode the array elements, which are all full JSON objects on their
878     own (this wouldn't work if the array elements could be JSON numbers, for
879     example):
880    
881     my $json = new JSON::XS;
882    
883     # open the monster
884     open my $fh, "<bigfile.json"
885     or die "bigfile: $!";
886    
887     # first parse the initial "["
888     for (;;) {
889     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
890     or die "read error: $!";
891     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
892    
893     # Exit the loop once we found and removed(!) the initial "[".
894     # In essence, we are (ab-)using the $json object as a simple scalar
895     # we append data to.
896     last if $json->incr_text =~ s/^ \s* \[ //x;
897     }
898    
899     # now we have the skipped the initial "[", so continue
900     # parsing all the elements.
901     for (;;) {
902     # in this loop we read data until we got a single JSON object
903     for (;;) {
904     if (my $obj = $json->incr_parse) {
905     # do something with $obj
906     last;
907     }
908    
909     # add more data
910     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
911     or die "read error: $!";
912     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
913     }
914    
915     # in this loop we read data until we either found and parsed the
916     # separating "," between elements, or the final "]"
917     for (;;) {
918     # first skip whitespace
919     $json->incr_text =~ s/^\s*//;
920    
921     # if we find "]", we are done
922     if ($json->incr_text =~ s/^\]//) {
923     print "finished.\n";
924     exit;
925     }
926    
927     # if we find ",", we can continue with the next element
928     if ($json->incr_text =~ s/^,//) {
929     last;
930     }
931    
932     # if we find anything else, we have a parse error!
933     if (length $json->incr_text) {
934     die "parse error near ", $json->incr_text;
935     }
936    
937     # else add more data
938     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
939     or die "read error: $!";
940     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
941     }
942    
943     This is a complex example, but most of the complexity comes from the fact
944     that we are trying to be correct (bear with me if I am wrong, I never ran
945     the above example :).
946    
947    
948    
949 root 1.10 =head1 MAPPING
950    
951     This section describes how JSON::XS maps Perl values to JSON values and
952     vice versa. These mappings are designed to "do the right thing" in most
953     circumstances automatically, preserving round-tripping characteristics
954     (what you put in comes out as something equivalent).
955    
956     For the more enlightened: note that in the following descriptions,
957 root 1.68 lowercase I<perl> refers to the Perl interpreter, while uppercase I<Perl>
958 root 1.10 refers to the abstract Perl language itself.
959    
960 root 1.39
961 root 1.10 =head2 JSON -> PERL
962    
963     =over 4
964    
965     =item object
966    
967     A JSON object becomes a reference to a hash in Perl. No ordering of object
968 root 1.68 keys is preserved (JSON does not preserve object key ordering itself).
969 root 1.10
970     =item array
971    
972     A JSON array becomes a reference to an array in Perl.
973    
974     =item string
975    
976     A JSON string becomes a string scalar in Perl - Unicode codepoints in JSON
977     are represented by the same codepoints in the Perl string, so no manual
978     decoding is necessary.
979    
980     =item number
981    
982 root 1.56 A JSON number becomes either an integer, numeric (floating point) or
983     string scalar in perl, depending on its range and any fractional parts. On
984     the Perl level, there is no difference between those as Perl handles all
985     the conversion details, but an integer may take slightly less memory and
986 root 1.84 might represent more values exactly than floating point numbers.
987 root 1.56
988     If the number consists of digits only, JSON::XS will try to represent
989     it as an integer value. If that fails, it will try to represent it as
990     a numeric (floating point) value if that is possible without loss of
991 root 1.84 precision. Otherwise it will preserve the number as a string value (in
992     which case you lose roundtripping ability, as the JSON number will be
993     re-encoded toa JSON string).
994 root 1.56
995     Numbers containing a fractional or exponential part will always be
996     represented as numeric (floating point) values, possibly at a loss of
997 root 1.84 precision (in which case you might lose perfect roundtripping ability, but
998     the JSON number will still be re-encoded as a JSON number).
999 root 1.10
1000 root 1.131 Note that precision is not accuracy - binary floating point values cannot
1001     represent most decimal fractions exactly, and when converting from and to
1002     floating point, JSON::XS only guarantees precision up to but not including
1003     the leats significant bit.
1004    
1005 root 1.10 =item true, false
1006    
1007 root 1.43 These JSON atoms become C<JSON::XS::true> and C<JSON::XS::false>,
1008     respectively. They are overloaded to act almost exactly like the numbers
1009 root 1.68 C<1> and C<0>. You can check whether a scalar is a JSON boolean by using
1010 root 1.43 the C<JSON::XS::is_bool> function.
1011 root 1.10
1012     =item null
1013    
1014     A JSON null atom becomes C<undef> in Perl.
1015    
1016     =back
1017    
1018 root 1.39
1019 root 1.10 =head2 PERL -> JSON
1020    
1021     The mapping from Perl to JSON is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
1022     truly typeless language, so we can only guess which JSON type is meant by
1023     a Perl value.
1024    
1025     =over 4
1026    
1027     =item hash references
1028    
1029     Perl hash references become JSON objects. As there is no inherent ordering
1030 root 1.25 in hash keys (or JSON objects), they will usually be encoded in a
1031     pseudo-random order that can change between runs of the same program but
1032     stays generally the same within a single run of a program. JSON::XS can
1033     optionally sort the hash keys (determined by the I<canonical> flag), so
1034     the same datastructure will serialise to the same JSON text (given same
1035     settings and version of JSON::XS), but this incurs a runtime overhead
1036     and is only rarely useful, e.g. when you want to compare some JSON text
1037     against another for equality.
1038 root 1.10
1039     =item array references
1040    
1041     Perl array references become JSON arrays.
1042    
1043 root 1.25 =item other references
1044    
1045     Other unblessed references are generally not allowed and will cause an
1046     exception to be thrown, except for references to the integers C<0> and
1047     C<1>, which get turned into C<false> and C<true> atoms in JSON. You can
1048     also use C<JSON::XS::false> and C<JSON::XS::true> to improve readability.
1049    
1050 root 1.104 encode_json [\0, JSON::XS::true] # yields [false,true]
1051 root 1.25
1052 root 1.43 =item JSON::XS::true, JSON::XS::false
1053    
1054     These special values become JSON true and JSON false values,
1055 root 1.61 respectively. You can also use C<\1> and C<\0> directly if you want.
1056 root 1.43
1057 root 1.10 =item blessed objects
1058    
1059 root 1.83 Blessed objects are not directly representable in JSON. See the
1060     C<allow_blessed> and C<convert_blessed> methods on various options on
1061     how to deal with this: basically, you can choose between throwing an
1062     exception, encoding the reference as if it weren't blessed, or provide
1063     your own serialiser method.
1064 root 1.10
1065     =item simple scalars
1066    
1067     Simple Perl scalars (any scalar that is not a reference) are the most
1068     difficult objects to encode: JSON::XS will encode undefined scalars as
1069 root 1.83 JSON C<null> values, scalars that have last been used in a string context
1070     before encoding as JSON strings, and anything else as number value:
1071 root 1.10
1072     # dump as number
1073 root 1.78 encode_json [2] # yields [2]
1074     encode_json [-3.0e17] # yields [-3e+17]
1075     my $value = 5; encode_json [$value] # yields [5]
1076 root 1.10
1077     # used as string, so dump as string
1078     print $value;
1079 root 1.78 encode_json [$value] # yields ["5"]
1080 root 1.10
1081     # undef becomes null
1082 root 1.78 encode_json [undef] # yields [null]
1083 root 1.10
1084 root 1.68 You can force the type to be a JSON string by stringifying it:
1085 root 1.10
1086     my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
1087     "$x"; # stringified
1088     $x .= ""; # another, more awkward way to stringify
1089     print $x; # perl does it for you, too, quite often
1090    
1091 root 1.68 You can force the type to be a JSON number by numifying it:
1092 root 1.10
1093     my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
1094     $x += 0; # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
1095 root 1.68 $x *= 1; # same thing, the choice is yours.
1096 root 1.10
1097 root 1.68 You can not currently force the type in other, less obscure, ways. Tell me
1098 root 1.91 if you need this capability (but don't forget to explain why it's needed
1099 root 1.83 :).
1100 root 1.10
1101 root 1.131 Note that numerical precision has the same meaning as under Perl (so
1102     binary to decimal conversion follows the same rules as in Perl, which
1103     can differ to other languages). Also, your perl interpreter might expose
1104     extensions to the floating point numbers of your platform, such as
1105     infinities or NaN's - these cannot be represented in JSON, and it is an
1106     error to pass those in.
1107    
1108 root 1.10 =back
1109    
1110 root 1.23
1111 root 1.84 =head1 ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES
1112    
1113     The interested reader might have seen a number of flags that signify
1114     encodings or codesets - C<utf8>, C<latin1> and C<ascii>. There seems to be
1115     some confusion on what these do, so here is a short comparison:
1116    
1117 root 1.91 C<utf8> controls whether the JSON text created by C<encode> (and expected
1118 root 1.84 by C<decode>) is UTF-8 encoded or not, while C<latin1> and C<ascii> only
1119 root 1.91 control whether C<encode> escapes character values outside their respective
1120 root 1.84 codeset range. Neither of these flags conflict with each other, although
1121     some combinations make less sense than others.
1122    
1123     Care has been taken to make all flags symmetrical with respect to
1124     C<encode> and C<decode>, that is, texts encoded with any combination of
1125     these flag values will be correctly decoded when the same flags are used
1126     - in general, if you use different flag settings while encoding vs. when
1127     decoding you likely have a bug somewhere.
1128    
1129     Below comes a verbose discussion of these flags. Note that a "codeset" is
1130     simply an abstract set of character-codepoint pairs, while an encoding
1131     takes those codepoint numbers and I<encodes> them, in our case into
1132     octets. Unicode is (among other things) a codeset, UTF-8 is an encoding,
1133     and ISO-8859-1 (= latin 1) and ASCII are both codesets I<and> encodings at
1134     the same time, which can be confusing.
1135    
1136     =over 4
1137    
1138     =item C<utf8> flag disabled
1139    
1140     When C<utf8> is disabled (the default), then C<encode>/C<decode> generate
1141     and expect Unicode strings, that is, characters with high ordinal Unicode
1142     values (> 255) will be encoded as such characters, and likewise such
1143     characters are decoded as-is, no canges to them will be done, except
1144     "(re-)interpreting" them as Unicode codepoints or Unicode characters,
1145     respectively (to Perl, these are the same thing in strings unless you do
1146     funny/weird/dumb stuff).
1147    
1148     This is useful when you want to do the encoding yourself (e.g. when you
1149     want to have UTF-16 encoded JSON texts) or when some other layer does
1150     the encoding for you (for example, when printing to a terminal using a
1151     filehandle that transparently encodes to UTF-8 you certainly do NOT want
1152     to UTF-8 encode your data first and have Perl encode it another time).
1153    
1154     =item C<utf8> flag enabled
1155    
1156     If the C<utf8>-flag is enabled, C<encode>/C<decode> will encode all
1157     characters using the corresponding UTF-8 multi-byte sequence, and will
1158     expect your input strings to be encoded as UTF-8, that is, no "character"
1159     of the input string must have any value > 255, as UTF-8 does not allow
1160     that.
1161    
1162     The C<utf8> flag therefore switches between two modes: disabled means you
1163     will get a Unicode string in Perl, enabled means you get an UTF-8 encoded
1164     octet/binary string in Perl.
1165    
1166     =item C<latin1> or C<ascii> flags enabled
1167    
1168     With C<latin1> (or C<ascii>) enabled, C<encode> will escape characters
1169     with ordinal values > 255 (> 127 with C<ascii>) and encode the remaining
1170     characters as specified by the C<utf8> flag.
1171    
1172     If C<utf8> is disabled, then the result is also correctly encoded in those
1173     character sets (as both are proper subsets of Unicode, meaning that a
1174     Unicode string with all character values < 256 is the same thing as a
1175     ISO-8859-1 string, and a Unicode string with all character values < 128 is
1176     the same thing as an ASCII string in Perl).
1177    
1178     If C<utf8> is enabled, you still get a correct UTF-8-encoded string,
1179     regardless of these flags, just some more characters will be escaped using
1180     C<\uXXXX> then before.
1181    
1182     Note that ISO-8859-1-I<encoded> strings are not compatible with UTF-8
1183     encoding, while ASCII-encoded strings are. That is because the ISO-8859-1
1184     encoding is NOT a subset of UTF-8 (despite the ISO-8859-1 I<codeset> being
1185     a subset of Unicode), while ASCII is.
1186    
1187     Surprisingly, C<decode> will ignore these flags and so treat all input
1188     values as governed by the C<utf8> flag. If it is disabled, this allows you
1189     to decode ISO-8859-1- and ASCII-encoded strings, as both strict subsets of
1190     Unicode. If it is enabled, you can correctly decode UTF-8 encoded strings.
1191    
1192     So neither C<latin1> nor C<ascii> are incompatible with the C<utf8> flag -
1193     they only govern when the JSON output engine escapes a character or not.
1194    
1195     The main use for C<latin1> is to relatively efficiently store binary data
1196     as JSON, at the expense of breaking compatibility with most JSON decoders.
1197    
1198     The main use for C<ascii> is to force the output to not contain characters
1199     with values > 127, which means you can interpret the resulting string
1200     as UTF-8, ISO-8859-1, ASCII, KOI8-R or most about any character set and
1201     8-bit-encoding, and still get the same data structure back. This is useful
1202     when your channel for JSON transfer is not 8-bit clean or the encoding
1203     might be mangled in between (e.g. in mail), and works because ASCII is a
1204     proper subset of most 8-bit and multibyte encodings in use in the world.
1205    
1206     =back
1207    
1208    
1209 root 1.115 =head2 JSON and ECMAscript
1210    
1211     JSON syntax is based on how literals are represented in javascript (the
1212     not-standardised predecessor of ECMAscript) which is presumably why it is
1213     called "JavaScript Object Notation".
1214    
1215     However, JSON is not a subset (and also not a superset of course) of
1216     ECMAscript (the standard) or javascript (whatever browsers actually
1217     implement).
1218    
1219     If you want to use javascript's C<eval> function to "parse" JSON, you
1220     might run into parse errors for valid JSON texts, or the resulting data
1221     structure might not be queryable:
1222    
1223     One of the problems is that U+2028 and U+2029 are valid characters inside
1224     JSON strings, but are not allowed in ECMAscript string literals, so the
1225     following Perl fragment will not output something that can be guaranteed
1226     to be parsable by javascript's C<eval>:
1227    
1228     use JSON::XS;
1229    
1230     print encode_json [chr 0x2028];
1231    
1232     The right fix for this is to use a proper JSON parser in your javascript
1233 root 1.117 programs, and not rely on C<eval> (see for example Douglas Crockford's
1234     F<json2.js> parser).
1235 root 1.115
1236     If this is not an option, you can, as a stop-gap measure, simply encode to
1237     ASCII-only JSON:
1238    
1239     use JSON::XS;
1240    
1241     print JSON::XS->new->ascii->encode ([chr 0x2028]);
1242    
1243 root 1.117 Note that this will enlarge the resulting JSON text quite a bit if you
1244     have many non-ASCII characters. You might be tempted to run some regexes
1245     to only escape U+2028 and U+2029, e.g.:
1246 root 1.115
1247 root 1.117 # DO NOT USE THIS!
1248 root 1.115 my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ([chr 0x2028]);
1249     $json =~ s/\xe2\x80\xa8/\\u2028/g; # escape U+2028
1250     $json =~ s/\xe2\x80\xa9/\\u2029/g; # escape U+2029
1251     print $json;
1252    
1253 root 1.117 Note that I<this is a bad idea>: the above only works for U+2028 and
1254     U+2029 and thus only for fully ECMAscript-compliant parsers. Many existing
1255     javascript implementations, however, have issues with other characters as
1256     well - using C<eval> naively simply I<will> cause problems.
1257 root 1.116
1258 root 1.115 Another problem is that some javascript implementations reserve
1259     some property names for their own purposes (which probably makes
1260     them non-ECMAscript-compliant). For example, Iceweasel reserves the
1261 root 1.134 C<__proto__> property name for its own purposes.
1262 root 1.115
1263     If that is a problem, you could parse try to filter the resulting JSON
1264     output for these property strings, e.g.:
1265    
1266     $json =~ s/"__proto__"\s*:/"__proto__renamed":/g;
1267    
1268     This works because C<__proto__> is not valid outside of strings, so every
1269     occurence of C<"__proto__"\s*:> must be a string used as property name.
1270    
1271     If you know of other incompatibilities, please let me know.
1272    
1273    
1274 root 1.39 =head2 JSON and YAML
1275    
1276 root 1.80 You often hear that JSON is a subset of YAML. This is, however, a mass
1277 root 1.90 hysteria(*) and very far from the truth (as of the time of this writing),
1278     so let me state it clearly: I<in general, there is no way to configure
1279     JSON::XS to output a data structure as valid YAML> that works in all
1280     cases.
1281 root 1.39
1282 root 1.41 If you really must use JSON::XS to generate YAML, you should use this
1283 root 1.39 algorithm (subject to change in future versions):
1284    
1285     my $to_yaml = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after (1);
1286     my $yaml = $to_yaml->encode ($ref) . "\n";
1287    
1288 root 1.83 This will I<usually> generate JSON texts that also parse as valid
1289 root 1.41 YAML. Please note that YAML has hardcoded limits on (simple) object key
1290 root 1.80 lengths that JSON doesn't have and also has different and incompatible
1291 root 1.124 unicode character escape syntax, so you should make sure that your hash
1292     keys are noticeably shorter than the 1024 "stream characters" YAML allows
1293     and that you do not have characters with codepoint values outside the
1294     Unicode BMP (basic multilingual page). YAML also does not allow C<\/>
1295     sequences in strings (which JSON::XS does not I<currently> generate, but
1296     other JSON generators might).
1297 root 1.39
1298 root 1.83 There might be other incompatibilities that I am not aware of (or the YAML
1299     specification has been changed yet again - it does so quite often). In
1300     general you should not try to generate YAML with a JSON generator or vice
1301     versa, or try to parse JSON with a YAML parser or vice versa: chances are
1302     high that you will run into severe interoperability problems when you
1303     least expect it.
1304 root 1.39
1305 root 1.82 =over 4
1306    
1307     =item (*)
1308    
1309 root 1.90 I have been pressured multiple times by Brian Ingerson (one of the
1310     authors of the YAML specification) to remove this paragraph, despite him
1311     acknowledging that the actual incompatibilities exist. As I was personally
1312     bitten by this "JSON is YAML" lie, I refused and said I will continue to
1313     educate people about these issues, so others do not run into the same
1314     problem again and again. After this, Brian called me a (quote)I<complete
1315     and worthless idiot>(unquote).
1316    
1317     In my opinion, instead of pressuring and insulting people who actually
1318     clarify issues with YAML and the wrong statements of some of its
1319     proponents, I would kindly suggest reading the JSON spec (which is not
1320     that difficult or long) and finally make YAML compatible to it, and
1321     educating users about the changes, instead of spreading lies about the
1322     real compatibility for many I<years> and trying to silence people who
1323     point out that it isn't true.
1324 root 1.82
1325 root 1.135 Addendum/2009: the YAML 1.2 spec is still incompatible with JSON, even
1326     though the incompatibilities have been documented (and are known to Brian)
1327     for many years and the spec makes explicit claims that YAML is a superset
1328     of JSON. It would be so easy to fix, but apparently, bullying people and
1329 root 1.124 corrupting userdata is so much easier.
1330    
1331 root 1.82 =back
1332    
1333 root 1.39
1334 root 1.3 =head2 SPEED
1335    
1336 root 1.4 It seems that JSON::XS is surprisingly fast, as shown in the following
1337     tables. They have been generated with the help of the C<eg/bench> program
1338     in the JSON::XS distribution, to make it easy to compare on your own
1339     system.
1340    
1341 root 1.88 First comes a comparison between various modules using
1342     a very short single-line JSON string (also available at
1343 root 1.89 L<http://dist.schmorp.de/misc/json/short.json>).
1344 root 1.18
1345 root 1.100 {"method": "handleMessage", "params": ["user1",
1346     "we were just talking"], "id": null, "array":[1,11,234,-5,1e5,1e7,
1347 root 1.129 1, 0]}
1348 root 1.18
1349 root 1.39 It shows the number of encodes/decodes per second (JSON::XS uses
1350     the functional interface, while JSON::XS/2 uses the OO interface
1351     with pretty-printing and hashkey sorting enabled, JSON::XS/3 enables
1352 root 1.129 shrink. JSON::DWIW/DS uses the deserialise function, while JSON::DWIW::FJ
1353     uses the from_json method). Higher is better:
1354 root 1.4
1355 root 1.129 module | encode | decode |
1356     --------------|------------|------------|
1357     JSON::DWIW/DS | 86302.551 | 102300.098 |
1358     JSON::DWIW/FJ | 86302.551 | 75983.768 |
1359     JSON::PP | 15827.562 | 6638.658 |
1360     JSON::Syck | 63358.066 | 47662.545 |
1361     JSON::XS | 511500.488 | 511500.488 |
1362     JSON::XS/2 | 291271.111 | 388361.481 |
1363     JSON::XS/3 | 361577.931 | 361577.931 |
1364     Storable | 66788.280 | 265462.278 |
1365     --------------+------------+------------+
1366    
1367     That is, JSON::XS is almost six times faster than JSON::DWIW on encoding,
1368     about five times faster on decoding, and over thirty to seventy times
1369     faster than JSON's pure perl implementation. It also compares favourably
1370     to Storable for small amounts of data.
1371 root 1.4
1372 root 1.13 Using a longer test string (roughly 18KB, generated from Yahoo! Locals
1373 root 1.89 search API (L<http://dist.schmorp.de/misc/json/long.json>).
1374 root 1.4
1375 root 1.129 module | encode | decode |
1376     --------------|------------|------------|
1377     JSON::DWIW/DS | 1647.927 | 2673.916 |
1378     JSON::DWIW/FJ | 1630.249 | 2596.128 |
1379     JSON::PP | 400.640 | 62.311 |
1380     JSON::Syck | 1481.040 | 1524.869 |
1381     JSON::XS | 20661.596 | 9541.183 |
1382     JSON::XS/2 | 10683.403 | 9416.938 |
1383     JSON::XS/3 | 20661.596 | 9400.054 |
1384     Storable | 19765.806 | 10000.725 |
1385     --------------+------------+------------+
1386 root 1.4
1387 root 1.40 Again, JSON::XS leads by far (except for Storable which non-surprisingly
1388 root 1.129 decodes a bit faster).
1389 root 1.4
1390 root 1.68 On large strings containing lots of high Unicode characters, some modules
1391 root 1.18 (such as JSON::PC) seem to decode faster than JSON::XS, but the result
1392 root 1.68 will be broken due to missing (or wrong) Unicode handling. Others refuse
1393 root 1.18 to decode or encode properly, so it was impossible to prepare a fair
1394     comparison table for that case.
1395 root 1.13
1396 root 1.11
1397 root 1.23 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1398    
1399     When you are using JSON in a protocol, talking to untrusted potentially
1400     hostile creatures requires relatively few measures.
1401    
1402     First of all, your JSON decoder should be secure, that is, should not have
1403     any buffer overflows. Obviously, this module should ensure that and I am
1404     trying hard on making that true, but you never know.
1405    
1406     Second, you need to avoid resource-starving attacks. That means you should
1407     limit the size of JSON texts you accept, or make sure then when your
1408 root 1.68 resources run out, that's just fine (e.g. by using a separate process that
1409 root 1.23 can crash safely). The size of a JSON text in octets or characters is
1410     usually a good indication of the size of the resources required to decode
1411 root 1.47 it into a Perl structure. While JSON::XS can check the size of the JSON
1412     text, it might be too late when you already have it in memory, so you
1413     might want to check the size before you accept the string.
1414 root 1.23
1415     Third, JSON::XS recurses using the C stack when decoding objects and
1416     arrays. The C stack is a limited resource: for instance, on my amd64
1417 root 1.28 machine with 8MB of stack size I can decode around 180k nested arrays but
1418     only 14k nested JSON objects (due to perl itself recursing deeply on croak
1419 root 1.79 to free the temporary). If that is exceeded, the program crashes. To be
1420 root 1.28 conservative, the default nesting limit is set to 512. If your process
1421     has a smaller stack, you should adjust this setting accordingly with the
1422     C<max_depth> method.
1423 root 1.23
1424 root 1.86 Something else could bomb you, too, that I forgot to think of. In that
1425     case, you get to keep the pieces. I am always open for hints, though...
1426    
1427     Also keep in mind that JSON::XS might leak contents of your Perl data
1428     structures in its error messages, so when you serialise sensitive
1429     information you might want to make sure that exceptions thrown by JSON::XS
1430     will not end up in front of untrusted eyes.
1431 root 1.23
1432 root 1.42 If you are using JSON::XS to return packets to consumption
1433 root 1.68 by JavaScript scripts in a browser you should have a look at
1434 root 1.127 L<http://blog.archive.jpsykes.com/47/practical-csrf-and-json-security/> to
1435     see whether you are vulnerable to some common attack vectors (which really
1436     are browser design bugs, but it is still you who will have to deal with
1437     it, as major browser developers care only for features, not about getting
1438     security right).
1439 root 1.42
1440 root 1.11
1441 root 1.64 =head1 THREADS
1442    
1443 root 1.68 This module is I<not> guaranteed to be thread safe and there are no
1444 root 1.64 plans to change this until Perl gets thread support (as opposed to the
1445     horribly slow so-called "threads" which are simply slow and bloated
1446 root 1.91 process simulations - use fork, it's I<much> faster, cheaper, better).
1447 root 1.64
1448 root 1.68 (It might actually work, but you have been warned).
1449 root 1.64
1450    
1451 root 1.139 =head1 THE PERILS OF SETLOCALE
1452    
1453     Sometimes people avoid the Perl locale support and directly call the
1454     system's setlocale function with C<LC_ALL>.
1455    
1456     This breaks both perl and modules such as JSON::XS, as stringification of
1457     numbers no longer works correcly (e.g. C<$x = 0.1; print "$x"+1> might
1458     print C<1>, and JSON::XS might output illegal JSON as JSON::XS relies on
1459     perl to stringify numbers).
1460    
1461     The solution is simple: don't call C<setlocale>, or use it for only those
1462     categories you need, such as C<LC_MESSAGES> or C<LC_CTYPE>.
1463    
1464     If you need C<LC_NUMERIC>, you should enable it only around the code that
1465     actually needs it (avoiding stringification of numbers), and restore it
1466     afterwards.
1467    
1468    
1469 root 1.4 =head1 BUGS
1470    
1471     While the goal of this module is to be correct, that unfortunately does
1472 root 1.103 not mean it's bug-free, only that I think its design is bug-free. If you
1473     keep reporting bugs they will be fixed swiftly, though.
1474 root 1.4
1475 root 1.64 Please refrain from using rt.cpan.org or any other bug reporting
1476     service. I put the contact address into my modules for a reason.
1477    
1478 root 1.2 =cut
1479    
1480 root 1.53 our $true = do { bless \(my $dummy = 1), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
1481     our $false = do { bless \(my $dummy = 0), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
1482 root 1.43
1483     sub true() { $true }
1484     sub false() { $false }
1485    
1486     sub is_bool($) {
1487     UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::XS::Boolean"
1488 root 1.44 # or UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::Literal"
1489 root 1.43 }
1490    
1491     XSLoader::load "JSON::XS", $VERSION;
1492    
1493     package JSON::XS::Boolean;
1494    
1495     use overload
1496     "0+" => sub { ${$_[0]} },
1497     "++" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} + 1 },
1498     "--" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} - 1 },
1499     fallback => 1;
1500 root 1.25
1501 root 1.2 1;
1502    
1503 root 1.93 =head1 SEE ALSO
1504    
1505     The F<json_xs> command line utility for quick experiments.
1506    
1507 root 1.1 =head1 AUTHOR
1508    
1509     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1510     http://home.schmorp.de/
1511    
1512     =cut
1513