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Revision: 1.46
Committed: Mon Jun 25 04:21:14 2007 UTC (16 years, 10 months ago) by root
Branch: MAIN
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1 root 1.1 =head1 NAME
2    
3     JSON::XS - JSON serialising/deserialising, done correctly and fast
4    
5     =head1 SYNOPSIS
6    
7     use JSON::XS;
8    
9 root 1.22 # exported functions, they croak on error
10     # and expect/generate UTF-8
11 root 1.12
12     $utf8_encoded_json_text = to_json $perl_hash_or_arrayref;
13     $perl_hash_or_arrayref = from_json $utf8_encoded_json_text;
14    
15 root 1.22 # objToJson and jsonToObj aliases to to_json and from_json
16     # are exported for compatibility to the JSON module,
17     # but should not be used in new code.
18 root 1.21
19 root 1.22 # OO-interface
20 root 1.12
21     $coder = JSON::XS->new->ascii->pretty->allow_nonref;
22     $pretty_printed_unencoded = $coder->encode ($perl_scalar);
23     $perl_scalar = $coder->decode ($unicode_json_text);
24    
25 root 1.1 =head1 DESCRIPTION
26    
27 root 1.2 This module converts Perl data structures to JSON and vice versa. Its
28     primary goal is to be I<correct> and its secondary goal is to be
29     I<fast>. To reach the latter goal it was written in C.
30    
31     As this is the n-th-something JSON module on CPAN, what was the reason
32     to write yet another JSON module? While it seems there are many JSON
33     modules, none of them correctly handle all corner cases, and in most cases
34     their maintainers are unresponsive, gone missing, or not listening to bug
35     reports for other reasons.
36    
37     See COMPARISON, below, for a comparison to some other JSON modules.
38    
39 root 1.10 See MAPPING, below, on how JSON::XS maps perl values to JSON values and
40     vice versa.
41    
42 root 1.2 =head2 FEATURES
43    
44 root 1.1 =over 4
45    
46 root 1.21 =item * correct unicode handling
47 root 1.2
48 root 1.10 This module knows how to handle Unicode, and even documents how and when
49     it does so.
50 root 1.2
51     =item * round-trip integrity
52    
53     When you serialise a perl data structure using only datatypes supported
54     by JSON, the deserialised data structure is identical on the Perl level.
55 root 1.21 (e.g. the string "2.0" doesn't suddenly become "2" just because it looks
56     like a number).
57 root 1.2
58     =item * strict checking of JSON correctness
59    
60 root 1.16 There is no guessing, no generating of illegal JSON texts by default,
61 root 1.10 and only JSON is accepted as input by default (the latter is a security
62     feature).
63 root 1.2
64     =item * fast
65    
66 root 1.10 Compared to other JSON modules, this module compares favourably in terms
67     of speed, too.
68 root 1.2
69     =item * simple to use
70    
71     This module has both a simple functional interface as well as an OO
72     interface.
73    
74     =item * reasonably versatile output formats
75    
76 root 1.10 You can choose between the most compact guarenteed single-line format
77 root 1.21 possible (nice for simple line-based protocols), a pure-ascii format
78     (for when your transport is not 8-bit clean, still supports the whole
79     unicode range), or a pretty-printed format (for when you want to read that
80     stuff). Or you can combine those features in whatever way you like.
81 root 1.2
82     =back
83    
84 root 1.1 =cut
85    
86     package JSON::XS;
87    
88 root 1.20 use strict;
89    
90 root 1.44 our $VERSION = '1.4';
91 root 1.43 our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
92 root 1.1
93 root 1.43 our @EXPORT = qw(to_json from_json objToJson jsonToObj);
94 root 1.1
95 root 1.43 use Exporter;
96     use XSLoader;
97 root 1.1
98 root 1.2 =head1 FUNCTIONAL INTERFACE
99    
100     The following convinience methods are provided by this module. They are
101     exported by default:
102    
103     =over 4
104    
105 root 1.16 =item $json_text = to_json $perl_scalar
106 root 1.2
107     Converts the given Perl data structure (a simple scalar or a reference to
108     a hash or array) to a UTF-8 encoded, binary string (that is, the string contains
109     octets only). Croaks on error.
110    
111 root 1.16 This function call is functionally identical to:
112 root 1.2
113 root 1.16 $json_text = JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ($perl_scalar)
114    
115     except being faster.
116    
117     =item $perl_scalar = from_json $json_text
118 root 1.2
119     The opposite of C<to_json>: expects an UTF-8 (binary) string and tries to
120 root 1.16 parse that as an UTF-8 encoded JSON text, returning the resulting simple
121 root 1.2 scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
122    
123 root 1.16 This function call is functionally identical to:
124    
125     $perl_scalar = JSON::XS->new->utf8->decode ($json_text)
126    
127     except being faster.
128 root 1.2
129 root 1.43 =item $is_boolean = JSON::XS::is_bool $scalar
130    
131     Returns true if the passed scalar represents either JSON::XS::true or
132     JSON::XS::false, two constants that act like C<1> and C<0>, respectively
133     and are used to represent JSON C<true> and C<false> values in Perl.
134    
135     See MAPPING, below, for more information on how JSON values are mapped to
136     Perl.
137    
138 root 1.2 =back
139    
140 root 1.23
141 root 1.2 =head1 OBJECT-ORIENTED INTERFACE
142    
143     The object oriented interface lets you configure your own encoding or
144     decoding style, within the limits of supported formats.
145    
146     =over 4
147    
148     =item $json = new JSON::XS
149    
150     Creates a new JSON::XS object that can be used to de/encode JSON
151     strings. All boolean flags described below are by default I<disabled>.
152 root 1.1
153 root 1.2 The mutators for flags all return the JSON object again and thus calls can
154     be chained:
155    
156 root 1.16 my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after->encode ({a => [1,2]})
157 root 1.3 => {"a": [1, 2]}
158 root 1.2
159 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->ascii ([$enable])
160 root 1.2
161 root 1.16 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will not
162     generate characters outside the code range C<0..127> (which is ASCII). Any
163     unicode characters outside that range will be escaped using either a
164     single \uXXXX (BMP characters) or a double \uHHHH\uLLLLL escape sequence,
165 root 1.32 as per RFC4627. The resulting encoded JSON text can be treated as a native
166     unicode string, an ascii-encoded, latin1-encoded or UTF-8 encoded string,
167     or any other superset of ASCII.
168 root 1.2
169     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not escape Unicode
170 root 1.33 characters unless required by the JSON syntax or other flags. This results
171     in a faster and more compact format.
172    
173     The main use for this flag is to produce JSON texts that can be
174     transmitted over a 7-bit channel, as the encoded JSON texts will not
175     contain any 8 bit characters.
176 root 1.2
177 root 1.16 JSON::XS->new->ascii (1)->encode ([chr 0x10401])
178     => ["\ud801\udc01"]
179 root 1.3
180 root 1.33 =item $json = $json->latin1 ([$enable])
181    
182     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will encode
183     the resulting JSON text as latin1 (or iso-8859-1), escaping any characters
184     outside the code range C<0..255>. The resulting string can be treated as a
185     latin1-encoded JSON text or a native unicode string. The C<decode> method
186     will not be affected in any way by this flag, as C<decode> by default
187     expects unicode, which is a strict superset of latin1.
188    
189     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not escape Unicode
190     characters unless required by the JSON syntax or other flags.
191    
192     The main use for this flag is efficiently encoding binary data as JSON
193     text, as most octets will not be escaped, resulting in a smaller encoded
194     size. The disadvantage is that the resulting JSON text is encoded
195     in latin1 (and must correctly be treated as such when storing and
196     transfering), a rare encoding for JSON. It is therefore most useful when
197     you want to store data structures known to contain binary data efficiently
198     in files or databases, not when talking to other JSON encoders/decoders.
199    
200     JSON::XS->new->latin1->encode (["\x{89}\x{abc}"]
201     => ["\x{89}\\u0abc"] # (perl syntax, U+abc escaped, U+89 not)
202    
203 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->utf8 ([$enable])
204 root 1.2
205 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will encode
206 root 1.16 the JSON result into UTF-8, as required by many protocols, while the
207 root 1.7 C<decode> method expects to be handled an UTF-8-encoded string. Please
208     note that UTF-8-encoded strings do not contain any characters outside the
209 root 1.16 range C<0..255>, they are thus useful for bytewise/binary I/O. In future
210     versions, enabling this option might enable autodetection of the UTF-16
211     and UTF-32 encoding families, as described in RFC4627.
212 root 1.2
213     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will return the JSON
214     string as a (non-encoded) unicode string, while C<decode> expects thus a
215     unicode string. Any decoding or encoding (e.g. to UTF-8 or UTF-16) needs
216     to be done yourself, e.g. using the Encode module.
217    
218 root 1.16 Example, output UTF-16BE-encoded JSON:
219    
220     use Encode;
221     $jsontext = encode "UTF-16BE", JSON::XS->new->encode ($object);
222    
223     Example, decode UTF-32LE-encoded JSON:
224    
225     use Encode;
226     $object = JSON::XS->new->decode (decode "UTF-32LE", $jsontext);
227 root 1.12
228 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->pretty ([$enable])
229 root 1.2
230     This enables (or disables) all of the C<indent>, C<space_before> and
231 root 1.3 C<space_after> (and in the future possibly more) flags in one call to
232 root 1.2 generate the most readable (or most compact) form possible.
233    
234 root 1.12 Example, pretty-print some simple structure:
235    
236 root 1.3 my $json = JSON::XS->new->pretty(1)->encode ({a => [1,2]})
237     =>
238     {
239     "a" : [
240     1,
241     2
242     ]
243     }
244    
245 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->indent ([$enable])
246 root 1.2
247 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will use a multiline
248 root 1.2 format as output, putting every array member or object/hash key-value pair
249     into its own line, identing them properly.
250    
251     If C<$enable> is false, no newlines or indenting will be produced, and the
252 root 1.16 resulting JSON text is guarenteed not to contain any C<newlines>.
253 root 1.2
254 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
255 root 1.2
256 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->space_before ([$enable])
257 root 1.2
258 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will add an extra
259 root 1.2 optional space before the C<:> separating keys from values in JSON objects.
260    
261     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not add any extra
262     space at those places.
263    
264 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts. You will also
265     most likely combine this setting with C<space_after>.
266 root 1.2
267 root 1.12 Example, space_before enabled, space_after and indent disabled:
268    
269     {"key" :"value"}
270    
271 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->space_after ([$enable])
272 root 1.2
273 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will add an extra
274 root 1.2 optional space after the C<:> separating keys from values in JSON objects
275     and extra whitespace after the C<,> separating key-value pairs and array
276     members.
277    
278     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will not add any extra
279     space at those places.
280    
281 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
282 root 1.2
283 root 1.12 Example, space_before and indent disabled, space_after enabled:
284    
285     {"key": "value"}
286    
287 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->canonical ([$enable])
288 root 1.2
289 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will output JSON objects
290 root 1.2 by sorting their keys. This is adding a comparatively high overhead.
291    
292     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will output key-value
293     pairs in the order Perl stores them (which will likely change between runs
294     of the same script).
295    
296     This option is useful if you want the same data structure to be encoded as
297 root 1.16 the same JSON text (given the same overall settings). If it is disabled,
298 root 1.2 the same hash migh be encoded differently even if contains the same data,
299     as key-value pairs have no inherent ordering in Perl.
300    
301 root 1.16 This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts.
302 root 1.2
303 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->allow_nonref ([$enable])
304 root 1.3
305 root 1.7 If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method can convert a
306 root 1.3 non-reference into its corresponding string, number or null JSON value,
307     which is an extension to RFC4627. Likewise, C<decode> will accept those JSON
308     values instead of croaking.
309    
310     If C<$enable> is false, then the C<encode> method will croak if it isn't
311 root 1.16 passed an arrayref or hashref, as JSON texts must either be an object
312 root 1.3 or array. Likewise, C<decode> will croak if given something that is not a
313     JSON object or array.
314    
315 root 1.12 Example, encode a Perl scalar as JSON value with enabled C<allow_nonref>,
316     resulting in an invalid JSON text:
317    
318     JSON::XS->new->allow_nonref->encode ("Hello, World!")
319     => "Hello, World!"
320    
321 root 1.44 =item $json = $json->allow_blessed ([$enable])
322    
323     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C<encode> method will not
324     barf when it encounters a blessed reference. Instead, the value of the
325     B<convert_blessed> option will decide wether C<null> (C<convert_blessed>
326     disabled or no C<to_json> method found) or a representation of the
327     object (C<convert_blessed> enabled and C<to_json> method found) is being
328     encoded. Has no effect on C<decode>.
329    
330     If C<$enable> is false (the default), then C<encode> will throw an
331     exception when it encounters a blessed object.
332    
333     =item $json = $json->convert_blessed ([$enable])
334    
335     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then C<encode>, upon encountering a
336     blessed object, will check for the availability of the C<TO_JSON> method
337     on the object's class. If found, it will be called in scalar context
338     and the resulting scalar will be encoded instead of the object. If no
339     C<TO_JSON> method is found, the value of C<allow_blessed> will decide what
340     to do.
341    
342     The C<TO_JSON> method may safely call die if it wants. If C<TO_JSON>
343     returns other blessed objects, those will be handled in the same
344     way. C<TO_JSON> must take care of not causing an endless recursion cycle
345     (== crash) in this case. The name of C<TO_JSON> was chosen because other
346 root 1.46 methods called by the Perl core (== not by the user of the object) are
347 root 1.44 usually in upper case letters and to avoid collisions with the C<to_json>
348     function.
349    
350 root 1.45 This setting does not yet influence C<decode> in any way, but in the
351     future, global hooks might get installed that influence C<decode> and are
352     enabled by this setting.
353    
354 root 1.44 If C<$enable> is false, then the C<allow_blessed> setting will decide what
355     to do when a blessed object is found.
356    
357 root 1.7 =item $json = $json->shrink ([$enable])
358    
359     Perl usually over-allocates memory a bit when allocating space for
360 root 1.24 strings. This flag optionally resizes strings generated by either
361 root 1.7 C<encode> or C<decode> to their minimum size possible. This can save
362 root 1.16 memory when your JSON texts are either very very long or you have many
363 root 1.8 short strings. It will also try to downgrade any strings to octet-form
364     if possible: perl stores strings internally either in an encoding called
365     UTF-X or in octet-form. The latter cannot store everything but uses less
366 root 1.24 space in general (and some buggy Perl or C code might even rely on that
367     internal representation being used).
368 root 1.7
369 root 1.24 The actual definition of what shrink does might change in future versions,
370     but it will always try to save space at the expense of time.
371    
372     If C<$enable> is true (or missing), the string returned by C<encode> will
373     be shrunk-to-fit, while all strings generated by C<decode> will also be
374     shrunk-to-fit.
375 root 1.7
376     If C<$enable> is false, then the normal perl allocation algorithms are used.
377     If you work with your data, then this is likely to be faster.
378    
379     In the future, this setting might control other things, such as converting
380     strings that look like integers or floats into integers or floats
381     internally (there is no difference on the Perl level), saving space.
382    
383 root 1.23 =item $json = $json->max_depth ([$maximum_nesting_depth])
384    
385 root 1.28 Sets the maximum nesting level (default C<512>) accepted while encoding
386 root 1.23 or decoding. If the JSON text or Perl data structure has an equal or
387     higher nesting level then this limit, then the encoder and decoder will
388     stop and croak at that point.
389    
390     Nesting level is defined by number of hash- or arrayrefs that the encoder
391     needs to traverse to reach a given point or the number of C<{> or C<[>
392     characters without their matching closing parenthesis crossed to reach a
393     given character in a string.
394    
395     Setting the maximum depth to one disallows any nesting, so that ensures
396     that the object is only a single hash/object or array.
397    
398     The argument to C<max_depth> will be rounded up to the next nearest power
399     of two.
400    
401     See SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS, below, for more info on why this is useful.
402    
403 root 1.16 =item $json_text = $json->encode ($perl_scalar)
404 root 1.2
405     Converts the given Perl data structure (a simple scalar or a reference
406     to a hash or array) to its JSON representation. Simple scalars will be
407     converted into JSON string or number sequences, while references to arrays
408     become JSON arrays and references to hashes become JSON objects. Undefined
409     Perl values (e.g. C<undef>) become JSON C<null> values. Neither C<true>
410     nor C<false> values will be generated.
411 root 1.1
412 root 1.16 =item $perl_scalar = $json->decode ($json_text)
413 root 1.1
414 root 1.16 The opposite of C<encode>: expects a JSON text and tries to parse it,
415 root 1.2 returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error.
416 root 1.1
417 root 1.2 JSON numbers and strings become simple Perl scalars. JSON arrays become
418     Perl arrayrefs and JSON objects become Perl hashrefs. C<true> becomes
419     C<1>, C<false> becomes C<0> and C<null> becomes C<undef>.
420 root 1.1
421 root 1.34 =item ($perl_scalar, $characters) = $json->decode_prefix ($json_text)
422    
423     This works like the C<decode> method, but instead of raising an exception
424     when there is trailing garbage after the first JSON object, it will
425     silently stop parsing there and return the number of characters consumed
426     so far.
427    
428     This is useful if your JSON texts are not delimited by an outer protocol
429     (which is not the brightest thing to do in the first place) and you need
430     to know where the JSON text ends.
431    
432     JSON::XS->new->decode_prefix ("[1] the tail")
433     => ([], 3)
434    
435 root 1.1 =back
436    
437 root 1.23
438 root 1.10 =head1 MAPPING
439    
440     This section describes how JSON::XS maps Perl values to JSON values and
441     vice versa. These mappings are designed to "do the right thing" in most
442     circumstances automatically, preserving round-tripping characteristics
443     (what you put in comes out as something equivalent).
444    
445     For the more enlightened: note that in the following descriptions,
446     lowercase I<perl> refers to the Perl interpreter, while uppcercase I<Perl>
447     refers to the abstract Perl language itself.
448    
449 root 1.39
450 root 1.10 =head2 JSON -> PERL
451    
452     =over 4
453    
454     =item object
455    
456     A JSON object becomes a reference to a hash in Perl. No ordering of object
457 root 1.14 keys is preserved (JSON does not preserver object key ordering itself).
458 root 1.10
459     =item array
460    
461     A JSON array becomes a reference to an array in Perl.
462    
463     =item string
464    
465     A JSON string becomes a string scalar in Perl - Unicode codepoints in JSON
466     are represented by the same codepoints in the Perl string, so no manual
467     decoding is necessary.
468    
469     =item number
470    
471     A JSON number becomes either an integer or numeric (floating point)
472     scalar in perl, depending on its range and any fractional parts. On the
473     Perl level, there is no difference between those as Perl handles all the
474     conversion details, but an integer may take slightly less memory and might
475     represent more values exactly than (floating point) numbers.
476    
477     =item true, false
478    
479 root 1.43 These JSON atoms become C<JSON::XS::true> and C<JSON::XS::false>,
480     respectively. They are overloaded to act almost exactly like the numbers
481     C<1> and C<0>. You can check wether a scalar is a JSON boolean by using
482     the C<JSON::XS::is_bool> function.
483 root 1.10
484     =item null
485    
486     A JSON null atom becomes C<undef> in Perl.
487    
488     =back
489    
490 root 1.39
491 root 1.10 =head2 PERL -> JSON
492    
493     The mapping from Perl to JSON is slightly more difficult, as Perl is a
494     truly typeless language, so we can only guess which JSON type is meant by
495     a Perl value.
496    
497     =over 4
498    
499     =item hash references
500    
501     Perl hash references become JSON objects. As there is no inherent ordering
502 root 1.25 in hash keys (or JSON objects), they will usually be encoded in a
503     pseudo-random order that can change between runs of the same program but
504     stays generally the same within a single run of a program. JSON::XS can
505     optionally sort the hash keys (determined by the I<canonical> flag), so
506     the same datastructure will serialise to the same JSON text (given same
507     settings and version of JSON::XS), but this incurs a runtime overhead
508     and is only rarely useful, e.g. when you want to compare some JSON text
509     against another for equality.
510 root 1.10
511     =item array references
512    
513     Perl array references become JSON arrays.
514    
515 root 1.25 =item other references
516    
517     Other unblessed references are generally not allowed and will cause an
518     exception to be thrown, except for references to the integers C<0> and
519     C<1>, which get turned into C<false> and C<true> atoms in JSON. You can
520     also use C<JSON::XS::false> and C<JSON::XS::true> to improve readability.
521    
522     to_json [\0,JSON::XS::true] # yields [false,true]
523    
524 root 1.43 =item JSON::XS::true, JSON::XS::false
525    
526     These special values become JSON true and JSON false values,
527     respectively. You cna alos use C<\1> and C<\0> directly if you want.
528    
529 root 1.10 =item blessed objects
530    
531     Blessed objects are not allowed. JSON::XS currently tries to encode their
532     underlying representation (hash- or arrayref), but this behaviour might
533     change in future versions.
534    
535     =item simple scalars
536    
537     Simple Perl scalars (any scalar that is not a reference) are the most
538     difficult objects to encode: JSON::XS will encode undefined scalars as
539     JSON null value, scalars that have last been used in a string context
540     before encoding as JSON strings and anything else as number value:
541    
542     # dump as number
543     to_json [2] # yields [2]
544     to_json [-3.0e17] # yields [-3e+17]
545     my $value = 5; to_json [$value] # yields [5]
546    
547     # used as string, so dump as string
548     print $value;
549     to_json [$value] # yields ["5"]
550    
551     # undef becomes null
552     to_json [undef] # yields [null]
553    
554     You can force the type to be a string by stringifying it:
555    
556     my $x = 3.1; # some variable containing a number
557     "$x"; # stringified
558     $x .= ""; # another, more awkward way to stringify
559     print $x; # perl does it for you, too, quite often
560    
561     You can force the type to be a number by numifying it:
562    
563     my $x = "3"; # some variable containing a string
564     $x += 0; # numify it, ensuring it will be dumped as a number
565     $x *= 1; # same thing, the choise is yours.
566    
567     You can not currently output JSON booleans or force the type in other,
568     less obscure, ways. Tell me if you need this capability.
569    
570     =back
571    
572 root 1.23
573 root 1.3 =head1 COMPARISON
574    
575     As already mentioned, this module was created because none of the existing
576     JSON modules could be made to work correctly. First I will describe the
577     problems (or pleasures) I encountered with various existing JSON modules,
578 root 1.4 followed by some benchmark values. JSON::XS was designed not to suffer
579     from any of these problems or limitations.
580 root 1.3
581     =over 4
582    
583 root 1.5 =item JSON 1.07
584 root 1.3
585     Slow (but very portable, as it is written in pure Perl).
586    
587     Undocumented/buggy Unicode handling (how JSON handles unicode values is
588     undocumented. One can get far by feeding it unicode strings and doing
589     en-/decoding oneself, but unicode escapes are not working properly).
590    
591     No roundtripping (strings get clobbered if they look like numbers, e.g.
592     the string C<2.0> will encode to C<2.0> instead of C<"2.0">, and that will
593     decode into the number 2.
594    
595 root 1.5 =item JSON::PC 0.01
596 root 1.3
597     Very fast.
598    
599     Undocumented/buggy Unicode handling.
600    
601     No roundtripping.
602    
603 root 1.4 Has problems handling many Perl values (e.g. regex results and other magic
604     values will make it croak).
605 root 1.3
606     Does not even generate valid JSON (C<{1,2}> gets converted to C<{1:2}>
607 root 1.16 which is not a valid JSON text.
608 root 1.3
609     Unmaintained (maintainer unresponsive for many months, bugs are not
610     getting fixed).
611    
612 root 1.5 =item JSON::Syck 0.21
613 root 1.3
614     Very buggy (often crashes).
615    
616 root 1.4 Very inflexible (no human-readable format supported, format pretty much
617     undocumented. I need at least a format for easy reading by humans and a
618     single-line compact format for use in a protocol, and preferably a way to
619 root 1.16 generate ASCII-only JSON texts).
620 root 1.3
621     Completely broken (and confusingly documented) Unicode handling (unicode
622     escapes are not working properly, you need to set ImplicitUnicode to
623     I<different> values on en- and decoding to get symmetric behaviour).
624    
625     No roundtripping (simple cases work, but this depends on wether the scalar
626     value was used in a numeric context or not).
627    
628     Dumping hashes may skip hash values depending on iterator state.
629    
630     Unmaintained (maintainer unresponsive for many months, bugs are not
631     getting fixed).
632    
633     Does not check input for validity (i.e. will accept non-JSON input and
634     return "something" instead of raising an exception. This is a security
635     issue: imagine two banks transfering money between each other using
636     JSON. One bank might parse a given non-JSON request and deduct money,
637     while the other might reject the transaction with a syntax error. While a
638     good protocol will at least recover, that is extra unnecessary work and
639     the transaction will still not succeed).
640    
641 root 1.5 =item JSON::DWIW 0.04
642 root 1.3
643     Very fast. Very natural. Very nice.
644    
645     Undocumented unicode handling (but the best of the pack. Unicode escapes
646     still don't get parsed properly).
647    
648     Very inflexible.
649    
650     No roundtripping.
651    
652 root 1.16 Does not generate valid JSON texts (key strings are often unquoted, empty keys
653 root 1.4 result in nothing being output)
654    
655 root 1.3 Does not check input for validity.
656    
657     =back
658    
659 root 1.39
660     =head2 JSON and YAML
661    
662     You often hear that JSON is a subset (or a close subset) of YAML. This is,
663     however, a mass hysteria and very far from the truth. In general, there is
664     no way to configure JSON::XS to output a data structure as valid YAML.
665    
666 root 1.41 If you really must use JSON::XS to generate YAML, you should use this
667 root 1.39 algorithm (subject to change in future versions):
668    
669     my $to_yaml = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after (1);
670     my $yaml = $to_yaml->encode ($ref) . "\n";
671    
672     This will usually generate JSON texts that also parse as valid
673 root 1.41 YAML. Please note that YAML has hardcoded limits on (simple) object key
674     lengths that JSON doesn't have, so you should make sure that your hash
675     keys are noticably shorter than the 1024 characters YAML allows.
676 root 1.39
677     There might be other incompatibilities that I am not aware of. In general
678     you should not try to generate YAML with a JSON generator or vice versa,
679 root 1.41 or try to parse JSON with a YAML parser or vice versa: chances are high
680     that you will run into severe interoperability problems.
681 root 1.39
682    
683 root 1.3 =head2 SPEED
684    
685 root 1.4 It seems that JSON::XS is surprisingly fast, as shown in the following
686     tables. They have been generated with the help of the C<eg/bench> program
687     in the JSON::XS distribution, to make it easy to compare on your own
688     system.
689    
690 root 1.37 First comes a comparison between various modules using a very short
691     single-line JSON string:
692 root 1.18
693 root 1.37 {"method": "handleMessage", "params": ["user1", "we were just talking"], \
694 root 1.38 "id": null, "array":[1,11,234,-5,1e5,1e7, true, false]}
695 root 1.18
696 root 1.39 It shows the number of encodes/decodes per second (JSON::XS uses
697     the functional interface, while JSON::XS/2 uses the OO interface
698     with pretty-printing and hashkey sorting enabled, JSON::XS/3 enables
699     shrink). Higher is better:
700 root 1.4
701     module | encode | decode |
702     -----------|------------|------------|
703 root 1.38 JSON | 7645.468 | 4208.613 |
704 root 1.40 JSON::DWIW | 40721.398 | 77101.176 |
705 root 1.38 JSON::PC | 65948.176 | 78251.940 |
706 root 1.40 JSON::Syck | 22844.793 | 26479.192 |
707 root 1.38 JSON::XS | 388361.481 | 199728.762 |
708     JSON::XS/2 | 218453.333 | 192399.266 |
709     JSON::XS/3 | 338250.323 | 192399.266 |
710 root 1.40 Storable | 15779.925 | 14169.946 |
711 root 1.4 -----------+------------+------------+
712    
713 root 1.37 That is, JSON::XS is about five times faster than JSON::DWIW on encoding,
714 root 1.38 about three times faster on decoding, and over fourty times faster
715 root 1.37 than JSON, even with pretty-printing and key sorting. It also compares
716     favourably to Storable for small amounts of data.
717 root 1.4
718 root 1.13 Using a longer test string (roughly 18KB, generated from Yahoo! Locals
719 root 1.4 search API (http://nanoref.com/yahooapis/mgPdGg):
720    
721     module | encode | decode |
722     -----------|------------|------------|
723 root 1.37 JSON | 254.685 | 37.665 |
724 root 1.40 JSON::DWIW | 843.343 | 1049.731 |
725 root 1.37 JSON::PC | 3602.116 | 2307.352 |
726 root 1.40 JSON::Syck | 505.107 | 787.899 |
727     JSON::XS | 5747.196 | 3690.220 |
728     JSON::XS/2 | 3968.121 | 3676.634 |
729     JSON::XS/3 | 6105.246 | 3662.508 |
730     Storable | 4417.337 | 5285.161 |
731 root 1.4 -----------+------------+------------+
732    
733 root 1.40 Again, JSON::XS leads by far (except for Storable which non-surprisingly
734     decodes faster).
735 root 1.4
736 root 1.18 On large strings containing lots of high unicode characters, some modules
737     (such as JSON::PC) seem to decode faster than JSON::XS, but the result
738     will be broken due to missing (or wrong) unicode handling. Others refuse
739     to decode or encode properly, so it was impossible to prepare a fair
740     comparison table for that case.
741 root 1.13
742 root 1.11
743 root 1.23 =head1 SECURITY CONSIDERATIONS
744    
745     When you are using JSON in a protocol, talking to untrusted potentially
746     hostile creatures requires relatively few measures.
747    
748     First of all, your JSON decoder should be secure, that is, should not have
749     any buffer overflows. Obviously, this module should ensure that and I am
750     trying hard on making that true, but you never know.
751    
752     Second, you need to avoid resource-starving attacks. That means you should
753     limit the size of JSON texts you accept, or make sure then when your
754     resources run out, thats just fine (e.g. by using a separate process that
755     can crash safely). The size of a JSON text in octets or characters is
756     usually a good indication of the size of the resources required to decode
757     it into a Perl structure.
758    
759     Third, JSON::XS recurses using the C stack when decoding objects and
760     arrays. The C stack is a limited resource: for instance, on my amd64
761 root 1.28 machine with 8MB of stack size I can decode around 180k nested arrays but
762     only 14k nested JSON objects (due to perl itself recursing deeply on croak
763     to free the temporary). If that is exceeded, the program crashes. to be
764     conservative, the default nesting limit is set to 512. If your process
765     has a smaller stack, you should adjust this setting accordingly with the
766     C<max_depth> method.
767 root 1.23
768     And last but least, something else could bomb you that I forgot to think
769 root 1.30 of. In that case, you get to keep the pieces. I am always open for hints,
770 root 1.23 though...
771    
772 root 1.42 If you are using JSON::XS to return packets to consumption
773     by javascript scripts in a browser you should have a look at
774     L<http://jpsykes.com/47/practical-csrf-and-json-security> to see wether
775     you are vulnerable to some common attack vectors (which really are browser
776     design bugs, but it is still you who will have to deal with it, as major
777     browser developers care only for features, not about doing security
778     right).
779    
780 root 1.11
781 root 1.4 =head1 BUGS
782    
783     While the goal of this module is to be correct, that unfortunately does
784     not mean its bug-free, only that I think its design is bug-free. It is
785 root 1.23 still relatively early in its development. If you keep reporting bugs they
786     will be fixed swiftly, though.
787 root 1.4
788 root 1.2 =cut
789    
790 root 1.43 our $true = do { bless \(my $dummy = 1), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
791     our $false = do { bless \(my $dummy = 0), "JSON::XS::Boolean" };
792    
793     sub true() { $true }
794     sub false() { $false }
795    
796     sub is_bool($) {
797     UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::XS::Boolean"
798 root 1.44 # or UNIVERSAL::isa $_[0], "JSON::Literal"
799 root 1.43 }
800    
801     XSLoader::load "JSON::XS", $VERSION;
802    
803     package JSON::XS::Boolean;
804    
805     use overload
806     "0+" => sub { ${$_[0]} },
807     "++" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} + 1 },
808     "--" => sub { $_[0] = ${$_[0]} - 1 },
809     fallback => 1;
810 root 1.25
811 root 1.2 1;
812    
813 root 1.1 =head1 AUTHOR
814    
815     Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de>
816     http://home.schmorp.de/
817    
818     =cut
819