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Revision: 1.141
Committed: Fri Oct 25 19:53:08 2013 UTC (10 years, 6 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
Changes since 1.140: +3 -21 lines
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# 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 1.140 oriented 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 1.141 our @EXPORT = qw(encode_json decode_json);
110 root 1.1
111 root 1.43 use Exporter;
112     use XSLoader;
113 root 1.1
114 root 1.2 =head1 FUNCTIONAL INTERFACE
115    
116 root 1.68 The following convenience methods are provided by this module. They are
117 root 1.2 exported by default:
118    
119     =over 4
120    
121 root 1.78 =item $json_text = encode_json $perl_scalar
122 root 1.2
123 root 1.63 Converts the given Perl data structure to a UTF-8 encoded, binary string
124     (that is, the string contains octets only). Croaks on error.
125 root 1.2
126 root 1.16 This function call is functionally identical to:
127 root 1.2
128 root 1.16 $json_text = JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ($perl_scalar)
129    
130 root 1.105 Except being faster.
131 root 1.16
132 root 1.78 =item $perl_scalar = decode_json $json_text
133 root 1.2
134 root 1.78 The opposite of C<encode_json>: expects an UTF-8 (binary) string and tries
135 root 1.63 to parse that as an UTF-8 encoded JSON text, returning the resulting
136     reference. Croaks on error.
137 root 1.2
138 root 1.16 This function call is functionally identical to:
139    
140     $perl_scalar = JSON::XS->new->utf8->decode ($json_text)
141    
142 root 1.105 Except being faster.
143 root 1.2
144 root 1.43 =item $is_boolean = JSON::XS::is_bool $scalar
145    
146     Returns true if the passed scalar represents either JSON::XS::true or
147     JSON::XS::false, two constants that act like C<1> and C<0>, respectively
148     and are used to represent JSON C<true> and C<false> values in Perl.
149    
150     See MAPPING, below, for more information on how JSON values are mapped to
151     Perl.
152    
153 root 1.2 =back
154    
155 root 1.23
156 root 1.63 =head1 A FEW NOTES ON UNICODE AND PERL
157    
158     Since this often leads to confusion, here are a few very clear words on
159     how Unicode works in Perl, modulo bugs.
160    
161     =over 4
162    
163     =item 1. Perl strings can store characters with ordinal values > 255.
164    
165 root 1.68 This enables you to store Unicode characters as single characters in a
166 root 1.63 Perl string - very natural.
167    
168     =item 2. Perl does I<not> associate an encoding with your strings.
169    
170 root 1.84 ... until you force it to, e.g. when matching it against a regex, or
171     printing the scalar to a file, in which case Perl either interprets your
172     string as locale-encoded text, octets/binary, or as Unicode, depending
173     on various settings. In no case is an encoding stored together with your
174     data, it is I<use> that decides encoding, not any magical meta data.
175 root 1.63
176     =item 3. The internal utf-8 flag has no meaning with regards to the
177     encoding of your string.
178    
179     Just ignore that flag unless you debug a Perl bug, a module written in
180     XS or want to dive into the internals of perl. Otherwise it will only
181     confuse you, as, despite the name, it says nothing about how your string
182 root 1.68 is encoded. You can have Unicode strings with that flag set, with that
183 root 1.63 flag clear, and you can have binary data with that flag set and that flag
184     clear. Other possibilities exist, too.
185    
186     If you didn't know about that flag, just the better, pretend it doesn't
187     exist.
188    
189     =item 4. A "Unicode String" is simply a string where each character can be
190 root 1.105 validly interpreted as a Unicode code point.
191 root 1.63
192     If you have UTF-8 encoded data, it is no longer a Unicode string, but a
193     Unicode string encoded in UTF-8, giving you a binary string.
194    
195     =item 5. A string containing "high" (> 255) character values is I<not> a UTF-8 string.
196    
197 root 1.68 It's a fact. Learn to live with it.
198 root 1.63
199     =back
200    
201     I hope this helps :)
202    
203    
204 root 1.2 =head1 OBJECT-ORIENTED INTERFACE
205    
206     The object oriented interface lets you configure your own encoding or
207     decoding style, within the limits of supported formats.
208    
209     =over 4
210    
211     =item $json = new JSON::XS
212    
213     Creates a new JSON::XS object that can be used to de/encode JSON
214     strings. All boolean flags described below are by default I<disabled>.
215 root 1.1
216 root 1.2 The mutators for flags all return the JSON object again and thus calls can
217     be chained:
218    
219 root 1.16 my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after->encode ({a => [1,2]})
220 root 1.3 => {"a": [1, 2]}
221 root 1.2
222 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->ascii ([$enable])
223 root 1.2
224 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_ascii
225    
226 root 1.16 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will not
227     generate characters outside the code range C<0..127> (which is ASCII). Any
228 root 1.68 Unicode characters outside that range will be escaped using either a
229 root 1.16 single \uXXXX (BMP characters) or a double \uHHHH\uLLLLL escape sequence,
230 root 1.32 as per RFC4627. The resulting encoded JSON text can be treated as a native
231 root 1.68 Unicode string, an ascii-encoded, latin1-encoded or UTF-8 encoded string,
232 root 1.32 or any other superset of ASCII.
233 root 1.2
234     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not escape Unicode
235 root 1.33 characters unless required by the JSON syntax or other flags. This results
236     in a faster and more compact format.
237    
238 root 1.90 See also the section I<ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES> later in this
239     document.
240    
241 root 1.33 The main use for this flag is to produce JSON texts that can be
242     transmitted over a 7-bit channel, as the encoded JSON texts will not
243     contain any 8 bit characters.
244 root 1.2
245 root 1.16 JSON::XS->new->ascii (1)->encode ([chr 0x10401])
246     => ["\ud801\udc01"]
247 root 1.3
248 root 1.33 =item $json = $json->latin1 ([$enable])
249    
250 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_latin1
251    
252 root 1.33 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will encode
253     the resulting JSON text as latin1 (or iso-8859-1), escaping any characters
254     outside the code range C<0..255>. The resulting string can be treated as a
255 root 1.68 latin1-encoded JSON text or a native Unicode string. The C<decode> method
256 root 1.33 will not be affected in any way by this flag, as C<decode> by default
257 root 1.68 expects Unicode, which is a strict superset of latin1.
258 root 1.33
259     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not escape Unicode
260     characters unless required by the JSON syntax or other flags.
261    
262 root 1.90 See also the section I<ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES> later in this
263     document.
264    
265 root 1.33 The main use for this flag is efficiently encoding binary data as JSON
266     text, as most octets will not be escaped, resulting in a smaller encoded
267     size. The disadvantage is that the resulting JSON text is encoded
268     in latin1 (and must correctly be treated as such when storing and
269 root 1.68 transferring), a rare encoding for JSON. It is therefore most useful when
270 root 1.33 you want to store data structures known to contain binary data efficiently
271     in files or databases, not when talking to other JSON encoders/decoders.
272    
273     JSON::XS->new->latin1->encode (["\x{89}\x{abc}"]
274     => ["\x{89}\\u0abc"] # (perl syntax, U+abc escaped, U+89 not)
275    
276 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->utf8 ([$enable])
277 root 1.2
278 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_utf8
279    
280 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will encode
281 root 1.16 the JSON result into UTF-8, as required by many protocols, while the
282 root 1.7 C<decode> method expects to be handled an UTF-8-encoded string. Please
283     note that UTF-8-encoded strings do not contain any characters outside the
284 root 1.16 range C<0..255>, they are thus useful for bytewise/binary I/O. In future
285     versions, enabling this option might enable autodetection of the UTF-16
286     and UTF-32 encoding families, as described in RFC4627.
287 root 1.2
288     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will return the JSON
289 root 1.68 string as a (non-encoded) Unicode string, while C<decode> expects thus a
290     Unicode string. Any decoding or encoding (e.g. to UTF-8 or UTF-16) needs
291 root 1.2 to be done yourself, e.g. using the Encode module.
292    
293 root 1.90 See also the section I<ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES> later in this
294     document.
295    
296 root 1.16 Example, output UTF-16BE-encoded JSON:
297    
298     use Encode;
299     $jsontext = encode "UTF-16BE", JSON::XS->new->encode ($object);
300    
301     Example, decode UTF-32LE-encoded JSON:
302    
303     use Encode;
304     $object = JSON::XS->new->decode (decode "UTF-32LE", $jsontext);
305 root 1.12
306 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->pretty ([$enable])
307 root 1.2
308     This enables (or disables) all of the C<indent>, C<space_before> and
309 root 1.3 C<space_after> (and in the future possibly more) flags in one call to
310 root 1.2 generate the most readable (or most compact) form possible.
311    
312 root 1.12 Example, pretty-print some simple structure:
313    
314 root 1.3 my $json = JSON::XS->new->pretty(1)->encode ({a => [1,2]})
315     =>
316     {
317     "a" : [
318     1,
319     2
320     ]
321     }
322    
323 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->indent ([$enable])
324 root 1.2
325 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_indent
326    
327 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will use a multiline
328 root 1.2 format as output, putting every array member or object/hash key-value pair
329 root 1.68 into its own line, indenting them properly.
330 root 1.2
331     If C<$enable> is false, no newlines or indenting will be produced, and the
332 root 1.68 resulting JSON text is guaranteed not to contain any C<newlines>.
333 root 1.2
334 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
335 root 1.2
336 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->space_before ([$enable])
337 root 1.2
338 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_space_before
339    
340 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will add an extra
341 root 1.2 optional space before the C<:> separating keys from values in JSON objects.
342    
343     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not add any extra
344     space at those places.
345    
346 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts. You will also
347     most likely combine this setting with C<space_after>.
348 root 1.2
349 root 1.12 Example, space_before enabled, space_after and indent disabled:
350    
351     {"key" :"value"}
352    
353 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->space_after ([$enable])
354 root 1.2
355 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_space_after
356    
357 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will add an extra
358 root 1.2 optional space after the C<:> separating keys from values in JSON objects
359     and extra whitespace after the C<,> separating key-value pairs and array
360     members.
361    
362     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not add any extra
363     space at those places.
364    
365 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
366 root 1.2
367 root 1.12 Example, space_before and indent disabled, space_after enabled:
368    
369     {"key": "value"}
370    
371 root 1.59 =item $json = $json->relaxed ([$enable])
372    
373 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_relaxed
374    
375 root 1.59 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<decode> will accept some
376     extensions to normal JSON syntax (see below). C<encode> will not be
377     affected in anyway. I<Be aware that this option makes you accept invalid
378     JSON texts as if they were valid!>. I suggest only to use this option to
379     parse application-specific files written by humans (configuration files,
380     resource files etc.)
381    
382     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<decode> will only accept
383     valid JSON texts.
384    
385     Currently accepted extensions are:
386    
387     =over 4
388    
389     =item * list items can have an end-comma
390    
391     JSON I<separates> array elements and key-value pairs with commas. This
392     can be annoying if you write JSON texts manually and want to be able to
393     quickly append elements, so this extension accepts comma at the end of
394     such items not just between them:
395    
396     [
397     1,
398     2, <- this comma not normally allowed
399     ]
400     {
401     "k1": "v1",
402     "k2": "v2", <- this comma not normally allowed
403     }
404    
405 root 1.60 =item * shell-style '#'-comments
406    
407     Whenever JSON allows whitespace, shell-style comments are additionally
408     allowed. They are terminated by the first carriage-return or line-feed
409     character, after which more white-space and comments are allowed.
410    
411     [
412     1, # this comment not allowed in JSON
413     # neither this one...
414     ]
415    
416 root 1.59 =back
417    
418 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->canonical ([$enable])
419 root 1.2
420 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_canonical
421    
422 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will output JSON objects
423 root 1.2 by sorting their keys. This is adding a comparatively high overhead.
424    
425     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will output key-value
426     pairs in the order Perl stores them (which will likely change between runs
427 root 1.139 of the same script, and can change even within the same run from 5.18
428     onwards).
429 root 1.2
430     This option is useful if you want the same data structure to be encoded as
431 root 1.16 the same JSON text (given the same overall settings). If it is disabled,
432 root 1.68 the same hash might be encoded differently even if contains the same data,
433 root 1.2 as key-value pairs have no inherent ordering in Perl.
434    
435 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
436 root 1.2
437 root 1.122 This setting has currently no effect on tied hashes.
438    
439 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->allow_nonref ([$enable])
440 root 1.3
441 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_nonref
442    
443 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method can convert a
444 root 1.3 non-reference into its corresponding string, number or null JSON value,
445     which is an extension to RFC4627. Likewise, C<decode> will accept those JSON
446     values instead of croaking.
447    
448     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will croak if it isn't
449 root 1.16 passed an arrayref or hashref, as JSON texts must either be an object
450 root 1.3 or array. Likewise, C<decode> will croak if given something that is not a
451     JSON object or array.
452    
453 root 1.12 Example, encode a Perl scalar as JSON value with enabled C<allow_nonref>,
454     resulting in an invalid JSON text:
455    
456     JSON::XS->new->allow_nonref->encode ("Hello, World!")
457     => "Hello, World!"
458    
459 root 1.99 =item $json = $json->allow_unknown ([$enable])
460    
461     =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_unknown
462    
463     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode> will I<not> throw an
464     exception when it encounters values it cannot represent in JSON (for
465     example, filehandles) but instead will encode a JSON C<null> value. Note
466     that blessed objects are not included here and are handled separately by
467     c<allow_nonref>.
468    
469     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
470     exception when it encounters anything it cannot encode as JSON.
471    
472     This option does not affect C<decode> in any way, and it is recommended to
473     leave it off unless you know your communications partner.
474    
475 root 1.44 =item $json = $json->allow_blessed ([$enable])
476    
477 root 1.75 =item $enabled = $json->get_allow_blessed
478 root 1.72
479 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will not
480     barf when it encounters a blessed reference. Instead, the value of the
481 root 1.68 B<convert_blessed> option will decide whether C<null> (C<convert_blessed>
482 root 1.76 disabled or no C<TO_JSON> method found) or a representation of the
483     object (C<convert_blessed> enabled and C<TO_JSON> method found) is being
484 root 1.44 encoded. Has no effect on C<decode>.
485    
486     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
487     exception when it encounters a blessed object.
488    
489     =item $json = $json->convert_blessed ([$enable])
490    
491 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_convert_blessed
492    
493 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode>, upon encountering a
494     blessed object, will check for the availability of the C<TO_JSON> method
495     on the object's class. If found, it will be called in scalar context
496     and the resulting scalar will be encoded instead of the object. If no
497     C<TO_JSON> method is found, the value of C<allow_blessed> will decide what
498     to do.
499    
500     The C<TO_JSON> method may safely call die if it wants. If C<TO_JSON>
501     returns other blessed objects, those will be handled in the same
502     way. C<TO_JSON> must take care of not causing an endless recursion cycle
503     (== crash) in this case. The name of C<TO_JSON> was chosen because other
504 root 1.46 methods called by the Perl core (== not by the user of the object) are
505 root 1.78 usually in upper case letters and to avoid collisions with any C<to_json>
506     function or method.
507 root 1.44
508 root 1.45 This setting does not yet influence C<decode> in any way, but in the
509     future, global hooks might get installed that influence C<decode> and are
510     enabled by this setting.
511    
512 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is false, then the C<allow_blessed> setting will decide what
513     to do when a blessed object is found.
514    
515 root 1.52 =item $json = $json->filter_json_object ([$coderef->($hashref)])
516 root 1.51
517     When C<$coderef> is specified, it will be called from C<decode> each
518     time it decodes a JSON object. The only argument is a reference to the
519     newly-created hash. If the code references returns a single scalar (which
520     need not be a reference), this value (i.e. a copy of that scalar to avoid
521     aliasing) is inserted into the deserialised data structure. If it returns
522     an empty list (NOTE: I<not> C<undef>, which is a valid scalar), the
523     original deserialised hash will be inserted. This setting can slow down
524     decoding considerably.
525    
526 root 1.52 When C<$coderef> is omitted or undefined, any existing callback will
527     be removed and C<decode> will not change the deserialised hash in any
528     way.
529 root 1.51
530     Example, convert all JSON objects into the integer 5:
531    
532     my $js = JSON::XS->new->filter_json_object (sub { 5 });
533     # returns [5]
534     $js->decode ('[{}]')
535 root 1.52 # throw an exception because allow_nonref is not enabled
536     # so a lone 5 is not allowed.
537 root 1.51 $js->decode ('{"a":1, "b":2}');
538    
539 root 1.52 =item $json = $json->filter_json_single_key_object ($key [=> $coderef->($value)])
540 root 1.51
541 root 1.52 Works remotely similar to C<filter_json_object>, but is only called for
542     JSON objects having a single key named C<$key>.
543 root 1.51
544     This C<$coderef> is called before the one specified via
545 root 1.52 C<filter_json_object>, if any. It gets passed the single value in the JSON
546     object. If it returns a single value, it will be inserted into the data
547     structure. If it returns nothing (not even C<undef> but the empty list),
548     the callback from C<filter_json_object> will be called next, as if no
549     single-key callback were specified.
550    
551     If C<$coderef> is omitted or undefined, the corresponding callback will be
552     disabled. There can only ever be one callback for a given key.
553 root 1.51
554     As this callback gets called less often then the C<filter_json_object>
555     one, decoding speed will not usually suffer as much. Therefore, single-key
556     objects make excellent targets to serialise Perl objects into, especially
557     as single-key JSON objects are as close to the type-tagged value concept
558 root 1.68 as JSON gets (it's basically an ID/VALUE tuple). Of course, JSON does not
559 root 1.51 support this in any way, so you need to make sure your data never looks
560     like a serialised Perl hash.
561    
562     Typical names for the single object key are C<__class_whatever__>, or
563     C<$__dollars_are_rarely_used__$> or C<}ugly_brace_placement>, or even
564     things like C<__class_md5sum(classname)__>, to reduce the risk of clashing
565     with real hashes.
566    
567     Example, decode JSON objects of the form C<< { "__widget__" => <id> } >>
568     into the corresponding C<< $WIDGET{<id>} >> object:
569    
570     # return whatever is in $WIDGET{5}:
571     JSON::XS
572     ->new
573 root 1.52 ->filter_json_single_key_object (__widget__ => sub {
574     $WIDGET{ $_[0] }
575 root 1.51 })
576     ->decode ('{"__widget__": 5')
577    
578     # this can be used with a TO_JSON method in some "widget" class
579     # for serialisation to json:
580     sub WidgetBase::TO_JSON {
581     my ($self) = @_;
582    
583     unless ($self->{id}) {
584     $self->{id} = ..get..some..id..;
585     $WIDGET{$self->{id}} = $self;
586     }
587    
588     { __widget__ => $self->{id} }
589     }
590    
591 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->shrink ([$enable])
592    
593 root 1.72 =item $enabled = $json->get_shrink
594    
595 root 1.7 Perl usually over-allocates memory a bit when allocating space for
596 root 1.24 strings. This flag optionally resizes strings generated by either
597 root 1.7 C<encode> or C<decode> to their minimum size possible. This can save
598 root 1.16 memory when your JSON texts are either very very long or you have many
599 root 1.8 short strings. It will also try to downgrade any strings to octet-form
600     if possible: perl stores strings internally either in an encoding called
601     UTF-X or in octet-form. The latter cannot store everything but uses less
602 root 1.24 space in general (and some buggy Perl or C code might even rely on that
603     internal representation being used).
604 root 1.7
605 root 1.24 The actual definition of what shrink does might change in future versions,
606     but it will always try to save space at the expense of time.
607    
608     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), the string returned by C<encode> will
609     be shrunk-to-fit, while all strings generated by C<decode> will also be
610     shrunk-to-fit.
611 root 1.7
612     If C<$enable> is false, then the normal perl allocation algorithms are used.
613     If you work with your data, then this is likely to be faster.
614    
615     In the future, this setting might control other things, such as converting
616     strings that look like integers or floats into integers or floats
617     internally (there is no difference on the Perl level), saving space.
618    
619 root 1.23 =item $json = $json->max_depth ([$maximum_nesting_depth])
620    
621 root 1.72 =item $max_depth = $json->get_max_depth
622    
623 root 1.28 Sets the maximum nesting level (default C<512>) accepted while encoding
624 root 1.101 or decoding. If a higher nesting level is detected in JSON text or a Perl
625     data structure, then the encoder and decoder will stop and croak at that
626     point.
627 root 1.23
628     Nesting level is defined by number of hash- or arrayrefs that the encoder
629     needs to traverse to reach a given point or the number of C<{> or C<[>
630     characters without their matching closing parenthesis crossed to reach a
631     given character in a string.
632    
633     Setting the maximum depth to one disallows any nesting, so that ensures
634     that the object is only a single hash/object or array.
635    
636 root 1.101 If no argument is given, the highest possible setting will be used, which
637     is rarely useful.
638    
639     Note that nesting is implemented by recursion in C. The default value has
640     been chosen to be as large as typical operating systems allow without
641     crashing.
642 root 1.47
643     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
644    
645     =item $json = $json->max_size ([$maximum_string_size])
646    
647 root 1.72 =item $max_size = $json->get_max_size
648    
649 root 1.47 Set the maximum length a JSON text may have (in bytes) where decoding is
650     being attempted. The default is C<0>, meaning no limit. When C<decode>
651 root 1.101 is called on a string that is longer then this many bytes, it will not
652 root 1.47 attempt to decode the string but throw an exception. This setting has no
653     effect on C<encode> (yet).
654    
655 root 1.101 If no argument is given, the limit check will be deactivated (same as when
656     C<0> is specified).
657 root 1.23
658     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
659    
660 root 1.16 =item $json_text = $json->encode ($perl_scalar)
661 root 1.2
662 root 1.141 Converts the given Perl value or data structure to its JSON
663     representation. Croaks on error.
664 root 1.1
665 root 1.16 =item $perl_scalar = $json->decode ($json_text)
666 root 1.1
667 root 1.16 The opposite of C<encode>: expects a JSON text and tries to parse it,
668 root 1.2 returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
669 root 1.1
670 root 1.34 =item ($perl_scalar, $characters) = $json->decode_prefix ($json_text)
671    
672     This works like the C<decode> method, but instead of raising an exception
673     when there is trailing garbage after the first JSON object, it will
674     silently stop parsing there and return the number of characters consumed
675     so far.
676    
677     This is useful if your JSON texts are not delimited by an outer protocol
678     (which is not the brightest thing to do in the first place) and you need
679     to know where the JSON text ends.
680    
681     JSON::XS->new->decode_prefix ("[1] the tail")
682     => ([], 3)
683    
684 root 1.1 =back
685    
686 root 1.23
687 root 1.94 =head1 INCREMENTAL PARSING
688    
689     In some cases, there is the need for incremental parsing of JSON
690     texts. While this module always has to keep both JSON text and resulting
691     Perl data structure in memory at one time, it does allow you to parse a
692     JSON stream incrementally. It does so by accumulating text until it has
693     a full JSON object, which it then can decode. This process is similar to
694 root 1.108 using C<decode_prefix> to see if a full JSON object is available, but
695     is much more efficient (and can be implemented with a minimum of method
696     calls).
697    
698     JSON::XS will only attempt to parse the JSON text once it is sure it
699     has enough text to get a decisive result, using a very simple but
700     truly incremental parser. This means that it sometimes won't stop as
701 root 1.134 early as the full parser, for example, it doesn't detect mismatched
702     parentheses. The only thing it guarantees is that it starts decoding as
703 root 1.108 soon as a syntactically valid JSON text has been seen. This means you need
704     to set resource limits (e.g. C<max_size>) to ensure the parser will stop
705     parsing in the presence if syntax errors.
706 root 1.94
707 root 1.108 The following methods implement this incremental parser.
708 root 1.94
709     =over 4
710    
711     =item [void, scalar or list context] = $json->incr_parse ([$string])
712    
713     This is the central parsing function. It can both append new text and
714     extract objects from the stream accumulated so far (both of these
715     functions are optional).
716    
717     If C<$string> is given, then this string is appended to the already
718     existing JSON fragment stored in the C<$json> object.
719    
720     After that, if the function is called in void context, it will simply
721     return without doing anything further. This can be used to add more text
722     in as many chunks as you want.
723    
724     If the method is called in scalar context, then it will try to extract
725     exactly I<one> JSON object. If that is successful, it will return this
726 root 1.96 object, otherwise it will return C<undef>. If there is a parse error,
727     this method will croak just as C<decode> would do (one can then use
728 root 1.140 C<incr_skip> to skip the erroneous part). This is the most common way of
729 root 1.94 using the method.
730    
731     And finally, in list context, it will try to extract as many objects
732     from the stream as it can find and return them, or the empty list
733     otherwise. For this to work, there must be no separators between the JSON
734 root 1.96 objects or arrays, instead they must be concatenated back-to-back. If
735     an error occurs, an exception will be raised as in the scalar context
736     case. Note that in this case, any previously-parsed JSON texts will be
737     lost.
738    
739 root 1.130 Example: Parse some JSON arrays/objects in a given string and return
740     them.
741    
742     my @objs = JSON::XS->new->incr_parse ("[5][7][1,2]");
743    
744 root 1.94 =item $lvalue_string = $json->incr_text
745    
746     This method returns the currently stored JSON fragment as an lvalue, that
747     is, you can manipulate it. This I<only> works when a preceding call to
748     C<incr_parse> in I<scalar context> successfully returned an object. Under
749     all other circumstances you must not call this function (I mean it.
750     although in simple tests it might actually work, it I<will> fail under
751     real world conditions). As a special exception, you can also call this
752     method before having parsed anything.
753    
754     This function is useful in two cases: a) finding the trailing text after a
755     JSON object or b) parsing multiple JSON objects separated by non-JSON text
756     (such as commas).
757    
758 root 1.97 =item $json->incr_skip
759    
760 root 1.114 This will reset the state of the incremental parser and will remove
761     the parsed text from the input buffer so far. This is useful after
762     C<incr_parse> died, in which case the input buffer and incremental parser
763     state is left unchanged, to skip the text parsed so far and to reset the
764     parse state.
765    
766     The difference to C<incr_reset> is that only text until the parse error
767 root 1.140 occurred is removed.
768 root 1.97
769 root 1.106 =item $json->incr_reset
770    
771     This completely resets the incremental parser, that is, after this call,
772     it will be as if the parser had never parsed anything.
773    
774 root 1.114 This is useful if you want to repeatedly parse JSON objects and want to
775 root 1.106 ignore any trailing data, which means you have to reset the parser after
776     each successful decode.
777    
778 root 1.94 =back
779    
780     =head2 LIMITATIONS
781    
782     All options that affect decoding are supported, except
783     C<allow_nonref>. The reason for this is that it cannot be made to
784     work sensibly: JSON objects and arrays are self-delimited, i.e. you can concatenate
785     them back to back and still decode them perfectly. This does not hold true
786     for JSON numbers, however.
787    
788     For example, is the string C<1> a single JSON number, or is it simply the
789     start of C<12>? Or is C<12> a single JSON number, or the concatenation
790     of C<1> and C<2>? In neither case you can tell, and this is why JSON::XS
791     takes the conservative route and disallows this case.
792    
793     =head2 EXAMPLES
794    
795     Some examples will make all this clearer. First, a simple example that
796     works similarly to C<decode_prefix>: We want to decode the JSON object at
797     the start of a string and identify the portion after the JSON object:
798    
799     my $text = "[1,2,3] hello";
800    
801     my $json = new JSON::XS;
802    
803     my $obj = $json->incr_parse ($text)
804     or die "expected JSON object or array at beginning of string";
805    
806     my $tail = $json->incr_text;
807     # $tail now contains " hello"
808    
809     Easy, isn't it?
810    
811     Now for a more complicated example: Imagine a hypothetical protocol where
812     you read some requests from a TCP stream, and each request is a JSON
813     array, without any separation between them (in fact, it is often useful to
814     use newlines as "separators", as these get interpreted as whitespace at
815     the start of the JSON text, which makes it possible to test said protocol
816     with C<telnet>...).
817    
818     Here is how you'd do it (it is trivial to write this in an event-based
819     manner):
820    
821     my $json = new JSON::XS;
822    
823     # read some data from the socket
824     while (sysread $socket, my $buf, 4096) {
825    
826     # split and decode as many requests as possible
827     for my $request ($json->incr_parse ($buf)) {
828     # act on the $request
829     }
830     }
831    
832     Another complicated example: Assume you have a string with JSON objects
833     or arrays, all separated by (optional) comma characters (e.g. C<[1],[2],
834     [3]>). To parse them, we have to skip the commas between the JSON texts,
835     and here is where the lvalue-ness of C<incr_text> comes in useful:
836    
837     my $text = "[1],[2], [3]";
838     my $json = new JSON::XS;
839    
840     # void context, so no parsing done
841     $json->incr_parse ($text);
842    
843     # now extract as many objects as possible. note the
844     # use of scalar context so incr_text can be called.
845     while (my $obj = $json->incr_parse) {
846     # do something with $obj
847    
848     # now skip the optional comma
849     $json->incr_text =~ s/^ \s* , //x;
850     }
851    
852     Now lets go for a very complex example: Assume that you have a gigantic
853     JSON array-of-objects, many gigabytes in size, and you want to parse it,
854     but you cannot load it into memory fully (this has actually happened in
855     the real world :).
856    
857     Well, you lost, you have to implement your own JSON parser. But JSON::XS
858     can still help you: You implement a (very simple) array parser and let
859     JSON decode the array elements, which are all full JSON objects on their
860     own (this wouldn't work if the array elements could be JSON numbers, for
861     example):
862    
863     my $json = new JSON::XS;
864    
865     # open the monster
866     open my $fh, "<bigfile.json"
867     or die "bigfile: $!";
868    
869     # first parse the initial "["
870     for (;;) {
871     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
872     or die "read error: $!";
873     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
874    
875     # Exit the loop once we found and removed(!) the initial "[".
876     # In essence, we are (ab-)using the $json object as a simple scalar
877     # we append data to.
878     last if $json->incr_text =~ s/^ \s* \[ //x;
879     }
880    
881     # now we have the skipped the initial "[", so continue
882     # parsing all the elements.
883     for (;;) {
884     # in this loop we read data until we got a single JSON object
885     for (;;) {
886     if (my $obj = $json->incr_parse) {
887     # do something with $obj
888     last;
889     }
890    
891     # add more data
892     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
893     or die "read error: $!";
894     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
895     }
896    
897     # in this loop we read data until we either found and parsed the
898     # separating "," between elements, or the final "]"
899     for (;;) {
900     # first skip whitespace
901     $json->incr_text =~ s/^\s*//;
902    
903     # if we find "]", we are done
904     if ($json->incr_text =~ s/^\]//) {
905     print "finished.\n";
906     exit;
907     }
908    
909     # if we find ",", we can continue with the next element
910     if ($json->incr_text =~ s/^,//) {
911     last;
912     }
913    
914     # if we find anything else, we have a parse error!
915     if (length $json->incr_text) {
916     die "parse error near ", $json->incr_text;
917     }
918    
919     # else add more data
920     sysread $fh, my $buf, 65536
921     or die "read error: $!";
922     $json->incr_parse ($buf); # void context, so no parsing
923     }
924    
925     This is a complex example, but most of the complexity comes from the fact
926     that we are trying to be correct (bear with me if I am wrong, I never ran
927     the above example :).
928    
929    
930    
931 root 1.10 =head1 MAPPING
932    
933     This section describes how JSON::XS maps Perl values to JSON values and
934     vice versa. These mappings are designed to "do the right thing" in most
935     circumstances automatically, preserving round-tripping characteristics
936     (what you put in comes out as something equivalent).
937    
938     For the more enlightened: note that in the following descriptions,
939 root 1.68 lowercase I<perl> refers to the Perl interpreter, while uppercase I<Perl>
940 root 1.10 refers to the abstract Perl language itself.
941    
942 root 1.39
943 root 1.10 =head2 JSON -> PERL
944    
945     =over 4
946    
947     =item object
948    
949     A JSON object becomes a reference to a hash in Perl. No ordering of object
950 root 1.68 keys is preserved (JSON does not preserve object key ordering itself).
951 root 1.10
952     =item array
953    
954     A JSON array becomes a reference to an array in Perl.
955    
956     =item string
957    
958     A JSON string becomes a string scalar in Perl - Unicode codepoints in JSON
959     are represented by the same codepoints in the Perl string, so no manual
960     decoding is necessary.
961    
962     =item number
963    
964 root 1.56 A JSON number becomes either an integer, numeric (floating point) or
965     string scalar in perl, depending on its range and any fractional parts. On
966     the Perl level, there is no difference between those as Perl handles all
967     the conversion details, but an integer may take slightly less memory and
968 root 1.84 might represent more values exactly than floating point numbers.
969 root 1.56
970     If the number consists of digits only, JSON::XS will try to represent
971     it as an integer value. If that fails, it will try to represent it as
972     a numeric (floating point) value if that is possible without loss of
973 root 1.84 precision. Otherwise it will preserve the number as a string value (in
974     which case you lose roundtripping ability, as the JSON number will be
975 root 1.140 re-encoded to a JSON string).
976 root 1.56
977     Numbers containing a fractional or exponential part will always be
978     represented as numeric (floating point) values, possibly at a loss of
979 root 1.84 precision (in which case you might lose perfect roundtripping ability, but
980     the JSON number will still be re-encoded as a JSON number).
981 root 1.10
982 root 1.131 Note that precision is not accuracy - binary floating point values cannot
983     represent most decimal fractions exactly, and when converting from and to
984     floating point, JSON::XS only guarantees precision up to but not including
985 root 1.140 the least significant bit.
986 root 1.131
987 root 1.10 =item true, false
988    
989 root 1.43 These JSON atoms become C<JSON::XS::true> and C<JSON::XS::false>,
990     respectively. They are overloaded to act almost exactly like the numbers
991 root 1.68 C<1> and C<0>. You can check whether a scalar is a JSON boolean by using
992 root 1.43 the C<JSON::XS::is_bool> function.
993 root 1.10
994     =item null
995    
996     A JSON null atom becomes C<undef> in Perl.
997    
998     =back
999    
1000 root 1.39
1001 root 1.10 =head2 PERL -> JSON
1002    
1003     The mapping from Perl to JSON is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
1004     truly typeless language, so we can only guess which JSON type is meant by
1005     a Perl value.
1006    
1007     =over 4
1008    
1009     =item hash references
1010    
1011     Perl hash references become JSON objects. As there is no inherent ordering
1012 root 1.25 in hash keys (or JSON objects), they will usually be encoded in a
1013     pseudo-random order that can change between runs of the same program but
1014     stays generally the same within a single run of a program. JSON::XS can
1015     optionally sort the hash keys (determined by the I<canonical> flag), so
1016     the same datastructure will serialise to the same JSON text (given same
1017     settings and version of JSON::XS), but this incurs a runtime overhead
1018     and is only rarely useful, e.g. when you want to compare some JSON text
1019     against another for equality.
1020 root 1.10
1021     =item array references
1022    
1023     Perl array references become JSON arrays.
1024    
1025 root 1.25 =item other references
1026    
1027     Other unblessed references are generally not allowed and will cause an
1028     exception to be thrown, except for references to the integers C<0> and
1029     C<1>, which get turned into C<false> and C<true> atoms in JSON. You can
1030     also use C<JSON::XS::false> and C<JSON::XS::true> to improve readability.
1031    
1032 root 1.104 encode_json [\0, JSON::XS::true] # yields [false,true]
1033 root 1.25
1034 root 1.43 =item JSON::XS::true, JSON::XS::false
1035    
1036     These special values become JSON true and JSON false values,
1037 root 1.61 respectively. You can also use C<\1> and C<\0> directly if you want.
1038 root 1.43
1039 root 1.10 =item blessed objects
1040    
1041 root 1.83 Blessed objects are not directly representable in JSON. See the
1042     C<allow_blessed> and C<convert_blessed> methods on various options on
1043     how to deal with this: basically, you can choose between throwing an
1044     exception, encoding the reference as if it weren't blessed, or provide
1045     your own serialiser method.
1046 root 1.10
1047     =item simple scalars
1048    
1049     Simple Perl scalars (any scalar that is not a reference) are the most
1050     difficult objects to encode: JSON::XS will encode undefined scalars as
1051 root 1.83 JSON C<null> values, scalars that have last been used in a string context
1052     before encoding as JSON strings, and anything else as number value:
1053 root 1.10
1054     # dump as number
1055 root 1.78 encode_json [2] # yields [2]
1056     encode_json [-3.0e17] # yields [-3e+17]
1057     my $value = 5; encode_json [$value] # yields [5]
1058 root 1.10
1059     # used as string, so dump as string
1060     print $value;
1061 root 1.78 encode_json [$value] # yields ["5"]
1062 root 1.10
1063     # undef becomes null
1064 root 1.78 encode_json [undef] # yields [null]
1065 root 1.10
1066 root 1.68 You can force the type to be a JSON string by stringifying it:
1067 root 1.10
1068     my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
1069     "$x"; # stringified
1070     $x .= ""; # another, more awkward way to stringify
1071     print $x; # perl does it for you, too, quite often
1072    
1073 root 1.68 You can force the type to be a JSON number by numifying it:
1074 root 1.10
1075     my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
1076     $x += 0; # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
1077 root 1.68 $x *= 1; # same thing, the choice is yours.
1078 root 1.10
1079 root 1.68 You can not currently force the type in other, less obscure, ways. Tell me
1080 root 1.91 if you need this capability (but don't forget to explain why it's needed
1081 root 1.83 :).
1082 root 1.10
1083 root 1.131 Note that numerical precision has the same meaning as under Perl (so
1084     binary to decimal conversion follows the same rules as in Perl, which
1085     can differ to other languages). Also, your perl interpreter might expose
1086     extensions to the floating point numbers of your platform, such as
1087     infinities or NaN's - these cannot be represented in JSON, and it is an
1088     error to pass those in.
1089    
1090 root 1.10 =back
1091    
1092 root 1.23
1093 root 1.84 =head1 ENCODING/CODESET FLAG NOTES
1094    
1095     The interested reader might have seen a number of flags that signify
1096     encodings or codesets - C<utf8>, C<latin1> and C<ascii>. There seems to be
1097     some confusion on what these do, so here is a short comparison:
1098    
1099 root 1.91 C<utf8> controls whether the JSON text created by C<encode> (and expected
1100 root 1.84 by C<decode>) is UTF-8 encoded or not, while C<latin1> and C<ascii> only
1101 root 1.91 control whether C<encode> escapes character values outside their respective
1102 root 1.84 codeset range. Neither of these flags conflict with each other, although
1103     some combinations make less sense than others.
1104    
1105     Care has been taken to make all flags symmetrical with respect to
1106     C<encode> and C<decode>, that is, texts encoded with any combination of
1107     these flag values will be correctly decoded when the same flags are used
1108     - in general, if you use different flag settings while encoding vs. when
1109     decoding you likely have a bug somewhere.
1110    
1111     Below comes a verbose discussion of these flags. Note that a "codeset" is
1112     simply an abstract set of character-codepoint pairs, while an encoding
1113     takes those codepoint numbers and I<encodes> them, in our case into
1114     octets. Unicode is (among other things) a codeset, UTF-8 is an encoding,
1115     and ISO-8859-1 (= latin 1) and ASCII are both codesets I<and> encodings at
1116     the same time, which can be confusing.
1117    
1118     =over 4
1119    
1120     =item C<utf8> flag disabled
1121    
1122     When C<utf8> is disabled (the default), then C<encode>/C<decode> generate
1123     and expect Unicode strings, that is, characters with high ordinal Unicode
1124     values (> 255) will be encoded as such characters, and likewise such
1125 root 1.140 characters are decoded as-is, no changes to them will be done, except
1126 root 1.84 "(re-)interpreting" them as Unicode codepoints or Unicode characters,
1127     respectively (to Perl, these are the same thing in strings unless you do
1128     funny/weird/dumb stuff).
1129    
1130     This is useful when you want to do the encoding yourself (e.g. when you
1131     want to have UTF-16 encoded JSON texts) or when some other layer does
1132     the encoding for you (for example, when printing to a terminal using a
1133     filehandle that transparently encodes to UTF-8 you certainly do NOT want
1134     to UTF-8 encode your data first and have Perl encode it another time).
1135    
1136     =item C<utf8> flag enabled
1137    
1138     If the C<utf8>-flag is enabled, C<encode>/C<decode> will encode all
1139     characters using the corresponding UTF-8 multi-byte sequence, and will
1140     expect your input strings to be encoded as UTF-8, that is, no "character"
1141     of the input string must have any value > 255, as UTF-8 does not allow
1142     that.
1143    
1144     The C<utf8> flag therefore switches between two modes: disabled means you
1145     will get a Unicode string in Perl, enabled means you get an UTF-8 encoded
1146     octet/binary string in Perl.
1147    
1148     =item C<latin1> or C<ascii> flags enabled
1149    
1150     With C<latin1> (or C<ascii>) enabled, C<encode> will escape characters
1151     with ordinal values > 255 (> 127 with C<ascii>) and encode the remaining
1152     characters as specified by the C<utf8> flag.
1153    
1154     If C<utf8> is disabled, then the result is also correctly encoded in those
1155     character sets (as both are proper subsets of Unicode, meaning that a
1156     Unicode string with all character values < 256 is the same thing as a
1157     ISO-8859-1 string, and a Unicode string with all character values < 128 is
1158     the same thing as an ASCII string in Perl).
1159    
1160     If C<utf8> is enabled, you still get a correct UTF-8-encoded string,
1161     regardless of these flags, just some more characters will be escaped using
1162     C<\uXXXX> then before.
1163    
1164     Note that ISO-8859-1-I<encoded> strings are not compatible with UTF-8
1165     encoding, while ASCII-encoded strings are. That is because the ISO-8859-1
1166     encoding is NOT a subset of UTF-8 (despite the ISO-8859-1 I<codeset> being
1167     a subset of Unicode), while ASCII is.
1168    
1169     Surprisingly, C<decode> will ignore these flags and so treat all input
1170     values as governed by the C<utf8> flag. If it is disabled, this allows you
1171     to decode ISO-8859-1- and ASCII-encoded strings, as both strict subsets of
1172     Unicode. If it is enabled, you can correctly decode UTF-8 encoded strings.
1173    
1174     So neither C<latin1> nor C<ascii> are incompatible with the C<utf8> flag -
1175     they only govern when the JSON output engine escapes a character or not.
1176    
1177     The main use for C<latin1> is to relatively efficiently store binary data
1178     as JSON, at the expense of breaking compatibility with most JSON decoders.
1179    
1180     The main use for C<ascii> is to force the output to not contain characters
1181     with values > 127, which means you can interpret the resulting string
1182     as UTF-8, ISO-8859-1, ASCII, KOI8-R or most about any character set and
1183     8-bit-encoding, and still get the same data structure back. This is useful
1184     when your channel for JSON transfer is not 8-bit clean or the encoding
1185     might be mangled in between (e.g. in mail), and works because ASCII is a
1186     proper subset of most 8-bit and multibyte encodings in use in the world.
1187    
1188     =back
1189    
1190    
1191 root 1.115 =head2 JSON and ECMAscript
1192    
1193     JSON syntax is based on how literals are represented in javascript (the
1194     not-standardised predecessor of ECMAscript) which is presumably why it is
1195     called "JavaScript Object Notation".
1196    
1197     However, JSON is not a subset (and also not a superset of course) of
1198     ECMAscript (the standard) or javascript (whatever browsers actually
1199     implement).
1200    
1201     If you want to use javascript's C<eval> function to "parse" JSON, you
1202     might run into parse errors for valid JSON texts, or the resulting data
1203     structure might not be queryable:
1204    
1205     One of the problems is that U+2028 and U+2029 are valid characters inside
1206     JSON strings, but are not allowed in ECMAscript string literals, so the
1207     following Perl fragment will not output something that can be guaranteed
1208     to be parsable by javascript's C<eval>:
1209    
1210     use JSON::XS;
1211    
1212     print encode_json [chr 0x2028];
1213    
1214     The right fix for this is to use a proper JSON parser in your javascript
1215 root 1.117 programs, and not rely on C<eval> (see for example Douglas Crockford's
1216     F<json2.js> parser).
1217 root 1.115
1218     If this is not an option, you can, as a stop-gap measure, simply encode to
1219     ASCII-only JSON:
1220    
1221     use JSON::XS;
1222    
1223     print JSON::XS->new->ascii->encode ([chr 0x2028]);
1224    
1225 root 1.117 Note that this will enlarge the resulting JSON text quite a bit if you
1226     have many non-ASCII characters. You might be tempted to run some regexes
1227     to only escape U+2028 and U+2029, e.g.:
1228 root 1.115
1229 root 1.117 # DO NOT USE THIS!
1230 root 1.115 my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ([chr 0x2028]);
1231     $json =~ s/\xe2\x80\xa8/\\u2028/g; # escape U+2028
1232     $json =~ s/\xe2\x80\xa9/\\u2029/g; # escape U+2029
1233     print $json;
1234    
1235 root 1.117 Note that I<this is a bad idea>: the above only works for U+2028 and
1236     U+2029 and thus only for fully ECMAscript-compliant parsers. Many existing
1237     javascript implementations, however, have issues with other characters as
1238     well - using C<eval> naively simply I<will> cause problems.
1239 root 1.116
1240 root 1.115 Another problem is that some javascript implementations reserve
1241     some property names for their own purposes (which probably makes
1242     them non-ECMAscript-compliant). For example, Iceweasel reserves the
1243 root 1.134 C<__proto__> property name for its own purposes.
1244 root 1.115
1245     If that is a problem, you could parse try to filter the resulting JSON
1246     output for these property strings, e.g.:
1247    
1248     $json =~ s/"__proto__"\s*:/"__proto__renamed":/g;
1249    
1250     This works because C<__proto__> is not valid outside of strings, so every
1251 root 1.140 occurrence of C<"__proto__"\s*:> must be a string used as property name.
1252 root 1.115
1253     If you know of other incompatibilities, please let me know.
1254    
1255    
1256 root 1.39 =head2 JSON and YAML
1257    
1258 root 1.80 You often hear that JSON is a subset of YAML. This is, however, a mass
1259 root 1.90 hysteria(*) and very far from the truth (as of the time of this writing),
1260     so let me state it clearly: I<in general, there is no way to configure
1261     JSON::XS to output a data structure as valid YAML> that works in all
1262     cases.
1263 root 1.39
1264 root 1.41 If you really must use JSON::XS to generate YAML, you should use this
1265 root 1.39 algorithm (subject to change in future versions):
1266    
1267     my $to_yaml = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after (1);
1268     my $yaml = $to_yaml->encode ($ref) . "\n";
1269    
1270 root 1.83 This will I<usually> generate JSON texts that also parse as valid
1271 root 1.41 YAML. Please note that YAML has hardcoded limits on (simple) object key
1272 root 1.80 lengths that JSON doesn't have and also has different and incompatible
1273 root 1.124 unicode character escape syntax, so you should make sure that your hash
1274     keys are noticeably shorter than the 1024 "stream characters" YAML allows
1275     and that you do not have characters with codepoint values outside the
1276     Unicode BMP (basic multilingual page). YAML also does not allow C<\/>
1277     sequences in strings (which JSON::XS does not I<currently> generate, but
1278     other JSON generators might).
1279 root 1.39
1280 root 1.83 There might be other incompatibilities that I am not aware of (or the YAML
1281     specification has been changed yet again - it does so quite often). In
1282     general you should not try to generate YAML with a JSON generator or vice
1283     versa, or try to parse JSON with a YAML parser or vice versa: chances are
1284     high that you will run into severe interoperability problems when you
1285     least expect it.
1286 root 1.39
1287 root 1.82 =over 4
1288    
1289     =item (*)
1290    
1291 root 1.90 I have been pressured multiple times by Brian Ingerson (one of the
1292     authors of the YAML specification) to remove this paragraph, despite him
1293     acknowledging that the actual incompatibilities exist. As I was personally
1294     bitten by this "JSON is YAML" lie, I refused and said I will continue to
1295     educate people about these issues, so others do not run into the same
1296     problem again and again. After this, Brian called me a (quote)I<complete
1297     and worthless idiot>(unquote).
1298    
1299     In my opinion, instead of pressuring and insulting people who actually
1300     clarify issues with YAML and the wrong statements of some of its
1301     proponents, I would kindly suggest reading the JSON spec (which is not
1302     that difficult or long) and finally make YAML compatible to it, and
1303     educating users about the changes, instead of spreading lies about the
1304     real compatibility for many I<years> and trying to silence people who
1305     point out that it isn't true.
1306 root 1.82
1307 root 1.135 Addendum/2009: the YAML 1.2 spec is still incompatible with JSON, even
1308     though the incompatibilities have been documented (and are known to Brian)
1309     for many years and the spec makes explicit claims that YAML is a superset
1310     of JSON. It would be so easy to fix, but apparently, bullying people and
1311 root 1.124 corrupting userdata is so much easier.
1312    
1313 root 1.82 =back
1314    
1315 root 1.39
1316 root 1.3 =head2 SPEED
1317    
1318 root 1.4 It seems that JSON::XS is surprisingly fast, as shown in the following
1319     tables. They have been generated with the help of the C<eg/bench> program
1320     in the JSON::XS distribution, to make it easy to compare on your own
1321     system.
1322    
1323 root 1.88 First comes a comparison between various modules using
1324     a very short single-line JSON string (also available at
1325 root 1.89 L<http://dist.schmorp.de/misc/json/short.json>).
1326 root 1.18
1327 root 1.100 {"method": "handleMessage", "params": ["user1",
1328     "we were just talking"], "id": null, "array":[1,11,234,-5,1e5,1e7,
1329 root 1.129 1, 0]}
1330 root 1.18
1331 root 1.39 It shows the number of encodes/decodes per second (JSON::XS uses
1332     the functional interface, while JSON::XS/2 uses the OO interface
1333     with pretty-printing and hashkey sorting enabled, JSON::XS/3 enables
1334 root 1.129 shrink. JSON::DWIW/DS uses the deserialise function, while JSON::DWIW::FJ
1335     uses the from_json method). Higher is better:
1336 root 1.4
1337 root 1.129 module | encode | decode |
1338     --------------|------------|------------|
1339     JSON::DWIW/DS | 86302.551 | 102300.098 |
1340     JSON::DWIW/FJ | 86302.551 | 75983.768 |
1341     JSON::PP | 15827.562 | 6638.658 |
1342     JSON::Syck | 63358.066 | 47662.545 |
1343     JSON::XS | 511500.488 | 511500.488 |
1344     JSON::XS/2 | 291271.111 | 388361.481 |
1345     JSON::XS/3 | 361577.931 | 361577.931 |
1346     Storable | 66788.280 | 265462.278 |
1347     --------------+------------+------------+
1348    
1349     That is, JSON::XS is almost six times faster than JSON::DWIW on encoding,
1350     about five times faster on decoding, and over thirty to seventy times
1351     faster than JSON's pure perl implementation. It also compares favourably
1352     to Storable for small amounts of data.
1353 root 1.4
1354 root 1.13 Using a longer test string (roughly 18KB, generated from Yahoo! Locals
1355 root 1.89 search API (L<http://dist.schmorp.de/misc/json/long.json>).
1356 root 1.4
1357 root 1.129 module | encode | decode |
1358     --------------|------------|------------|
1359     JSON::DWIW/DS | 1647.927 | 2673.916 |
1360     JSON::DWIW/FJ | 1630.249 | 2596.128 |
1361     JSON::PP | 400.640 | 62.311 |
1362     JSON::Syck | 1481.040 | 1524.869 |
1363     JSON::XS | 20661.596 | 9541.183 |
1364     JSON::XS/2 | 10683.403 | 9416.938 |
1365     JSON::XS/3 | 20661.596 | 9400.054 |
1366     Storable | 19765.806 | 10000.725 |
1367     --------------+------------+------------+
1368 root 1.4
1369 root 1.40 Again, JSON::XS leads by far (except for Storable which non-surprisingly
1370 root 1.129 decodes a bit faster).
1371 root 1.4
1372 root 1.68 On large strings containing lots of high Unicode characters, some modules
1373 root 1.18 (such as JSON::PC) seem to decode faster than JSON::XS, but the result
1374 root 1.68 will be broken due to missing (or wrong) Unicode handling. Others refuse
1375 root 1.18 to decode or encode properly, so it was impossible to prepare a fair
1376     comparison table for that case.
1377 root 1.13
1378 root 1.11
1379 root 1.23 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
1380    
1381     When you are using JSON in a protocol, talking to untrusted potentially
1382     hostile creatures requires relatively few measures.
1383    
1384     First of all, your JSON decoder should be secure, that is, should not have
1385     any buffer overflows. Obviously, this module should ensure that and I am
1386     trying hard on making that true, but you never know.
1387    
1388     Second, you need to avoid resource-starving attacks. That means you should
1389     limit the size of JSON texts you accept, or make sure then when your
1390 root 1.68 resources run out, that's just fine (e.g. by using a separate process that
1391 root 1.23 can crash safely). The size of a JSON text in octets or characters is
1392     usually a good indication of the size of the resources required to decode
1393 root 1.47 it into a Perl structure. While JSON::XS can check the size of the JSON
1394     text, it might be too late when you already have it in memory, so you
1395     might want to check the size before you accept the string.
1396 root 1.23
1397     Third, JSON::XS recurses using the C stack when decoding objects and
1398     arrays. The C stack is a limited resource: for instance, on my amd64
1399 root 1.28 machine with 8MB of stack size I can decode around 180k nested arrays but
1400     only 14k nested JSON objects (due to perl itself recursing deeply on croak
1401 root 1.79 to free the temporary). If that is exceeded, the program crashes. To be
1402 root 1.28 conservative, the default nesting limit is set to 512. If your process
1403     has a smaller stack, you should adjust this setting accordingly with the
1404     C<max_depth> method.
1405 root 1.23
1406 root 1.86 Something else could bomb you, too, that I forgot to think of. In that
1407     case, you get to keep the pieces. I am always open for hints, though...
1408    
1409     Also keep in mind that JSON::XS might leak contents of your Perl data
1410     structures in its error messages, so when you serialise sensitive
1411     information you might want to make sure that exceptions thrown by JSON::XS
1412     will not end up in front of untrusted eyes.
1413 root 1.23
1414 root 1.42 If you are using JSON::XS to return packets to consumption
1415 root 1.68 by JavaScript scripts in a browser you should have a look at
1416 root 1.127 L<http://blog.archive.jpsykes.com/47/practical-csrf-and-json-security/> to
1417     see whether you are vulnerable to some common attack vectors (which really
1418     are browser design bugs, but it is still you who will have to deal with
1419     it, as major browser developers care only for features, not about getting
1420     security right).
1421 root 1.42
1422 root 1.11
1423 root 1.64 =head1 THREADS
1424    
1425 root 1.68 This module is I<not> guaranteed to be thread safe and there are no
1426 root 1.64 plans to change this until Perl gets thread support (as opposed to the
1427     horribly slow so-called "threads" which are simply slow and bloated
1428 root 1.91 process simulations - use fork, it's I<much> faster, cheaper, better).
1429 root 1.64
1430 root 1.68 (It might actually work, but you have been warned).
1431 root 1.64
1432    
1433 root 1.139 =head1 THE PERILS OF SETLOCALE
1434    
1435     Sometimes people avoid the Perl locale support and directly call the
1436     system's setlocale function with C<LC_ALL>.
1437    
1438     This breaks both perl and modules such as JSON::XS, as stringification of
1439 root 1.140 numbers no longer works correctly (e.g. C<$x = 0.1; print "$x"+1> might
1440 root 1.139 print C<1>, and JSON::XS might output illegal JSON as JSON::XS relies on
1441     perl to stringify numbers).
1442    
1443     The solution is simple: don't call C<setlocale>, or use it for only those
1444     categories you need, such as C<LC_MESSAGES> or C<LC_CTYPE>.
1445    
1446     If you need C<LC_NUMERIC>, you should enable it only around the code that
1447     actually needs it (avoiding stringification of numbers), and restore it
1448     afterwards.
1449    
1450    
1451 root 1.4 =head1 BUGS
1452    
1453     While the goal of this module is to be correct, that unfortunately does
1454 root 1.103 not mean it's bug-free, only that I think its design is bug-free. If you
1455     keep reporting bugs they will be fixed swiftly, though.
1456 root 1.4
1457 root 1.64 Please refrain from using rt.cpan.org or any other bug reporting
1458     service. I put the contact address into my modules for a reason.
1459    
1460 root 1.2 =cut
1461    
1462 root 1.53 our $true = do { bless \(my $dummy = 1), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
1463     our $false = do { bless \(my $dummy = 0), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
1464 root 1.43
1465     sub true() { $true }
1466     sub false() { $false }
1467    
1468     sub is_bool($) {
1469     UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::XS::Boolean"
1470 root 1.44 # or UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::Literal"
1471 root 1.43 }
1472    
1473     XSLoader::load "JSON::XS", $VERSION;
1474    
1475     package JSON::XS::Boolean;
1476    
1477     use overload
1478     "0+" => sub { ${$_[0]} },
1479     "++" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} + 1 },
1480     "--" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} - 1 },
1481     fallback => 1;
1482 root 1.25
1483 root 1.2 1;
1484    
1485 root 1.93 =head1 SEE ALSO
1486    
1487     The F<json_xs> command line utility for quick experiments.
1488    
1489 root 1.1 =head1 AUTHOR
1490    
1491     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
1492     http://home.schmorp.de/
1493    
1494     =cut
1495