--- JSON-XS/XS.pm 2007/03/23 18:33:50 1.12 +++ JSON-XS/XS.pm 2007/03/24 22:55:16 1.18 @@ -51,7 +51,7 @@ =item * strict checking of JSON correctness -There is no guessing, no generating of illegal JSON strings by default, +There is no guessing, no generating of illegal JSON texts by default, and only JSON is accepted as input by default (the latter is a security feature). @@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ package JSON::XS; BEGIN { - $VERSION = '0.3'; + $VERSION = '0.5'; @ISA = qw(Exporter); @EXPORT = qw(to_json from_json); @@ -97,21 +97,29 @@ =over 4 -=item $json_string = to_json $perl_scalar +=item $json_text = to_json $perl_scalar Converts the given Perl data structure (a simple scalar or a reference to a hash or array) to a UTF-8 encoded, binary string (that is, the string contains octets only). Croaks on error. -This function call is functionally identical to C<< JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ($perl_scalar) >>. +This function call is functionally identical to: -=item $perl_scalar = from_json $json_string + $json_text = JSON::XS->new->utf8->encode ($perl_scalar) + +except being faster. + +=item $perl_scalar = from_json $json_text The opposite of C: expects an UTF-8 (binary) string and tries to -parse that as an UTF-8 encoded JSON string, returning the resulting simple +parse that as an UTF-8 encoded JSON text, returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error. -This function call is functionally identical to C<< JSON::XS->new->utf8->decode ($json_string) >>. +This function call is functionally identical to: + + $perl_scalar = JSON::XS->new->utf8->decode ($json_text) + +except being faster. =back @@ -130,37 +138,48 @@ The mutators for flags all return the JSON object again and thus calls can be chained: - my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8(1)->space_after(1)->encode ({a => [1,2]}) + my $json = JSON::XS->new->utf8->space_after->encode ({a => [1,2]}) => {"a": [1, 2]} =item $json = $json->ascii ([$enable]) -If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C method will -not generate characters outside the code range C<0..127>. Any unicode -characters outside that range will be escaped using either a single -\uXXXX (BMP characters) or a double \uHHHH\uLLLLL escape sequence, as per -RFC4627. +If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C method will not +generate characters outside the code range C<0..127> (which is ASCII). Any +unicode characters outside that range will be escaped using either a +single \uXXXX (BMP characters) or a double \uHHHH\uLLLLL escape sequence, +as per RFC4627. If C<$enable> is false, then the C method will not escape Unicode -characters unless necessary. +characters unless required by the JSON syntax. This results in a faster +and more compact format. - JSON::XS->new->ascii (1)->encode (chr 0x10401) - => \ud801\udc01 + JSON::XS->new->ascii (1)->encode ([chr 0x10401]) + => ["\ud801\udc01"] =item $json = $json->utf8 ([$enable]) If C<$enable> is true (or missing), then the C method will encode -the JSON string into UTF-8, as required by many protocols, while the +the JSON result into UTF-8, as required by many protocols, while the C method expects to be handled an UTF-8-encoded string. Please note that UTF-8-encoded strings do not contain any characters outside the -range C<0..255>, they are thus useful for bytewise/binary I/O. +range C<0..255>, they are thus useful for bytewise/binary I/O. In future +versions, enabling this option might enable autodetection of the UTF-16 +and UTF-32 encoding families, as described in RFC4627. If C<$enable> is false, then the C method will return the JSON string as a (non-encoded) unicode string, while C expects thus a unicode string. Any decoding or encoding (e.g. to UTF-8 or UTF-16) needs to be done yourself, e.g. using the Encode module. -Example, output UTF-16-encoded JSON: +Example, output UTF-16BE-encoded JSON: + + use Encode; + $jsontext = encode "UTF-16BE", JSON::XS->new->encode ($object); + +Example, decode UTF-32LE-encoded JSON: + + use Encode; + $object = JSON::XS->new->decode (decode "UTF-32LE", $jsontext); =item $json = $json->pretty ([$enable]) @@ -186,9 +205,9 @@ into its own line, identing them properly. If C<$enable> is false, no newlines or indenting will be produced, and the -resulting JSON strings is guarenteed not to contain any C. +resulting JSON text is guarenteed not to contain any C. -This setting has no effect when decoding JSON strings. +This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts. =item $json = $json->space_before ([$enable]) @@ -198,8 +217,8 @@ If C<$enable> is false, then the C method will not add any extra space at those places. -This setting has no effect when decoding JSON strings. You will also most -likely combine this setting with C. +This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts. You will also +most likely combine this setting with C. Example, space_before enabled, space_after and indent disabled: @@ -215,7 +234,7 @@ If C<$enable> is false, then the C method will not add any extra space at those places. -This setting has no effect when decoding JSON strings. +This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts. Example, space_before and indent disabled, space_after enabled: @@ -231,11 +250,11 @@ of the same script). This option is useful if you want the same data structure to be encoded as -the same JSON string (given the same overall settings). If it is disabled, +the same JSON text (given the same overall settings). If it is disabled, the same hash migh be encoded differently even if contains the same data, as key-value pairs have no inherent ordering in Perl. -This setting has no effect when decoding JSON strings. +This setting has no effect when decoding JSON texts. =item $json = $json->allow_nonref ([$enable]) @@ -245,7 +264,7 @@ values instead of croaking. If C<$enable> is false, then the C method will croak if it isn't -passed an arrayref or hashref, as JSON strings must either be an object +passed an arrayref or hashref, as JSON texts must either be an object or array. Likewise, C will croak if given something that is not a JSON object or array. @@ -260,7 +279,7 @@ Perl usually over-allocates memory a bit when allocating space for strings. This flag optionally resizes strings generated by either C or C to their minimum size possible. This can save -memory when your JSON strings are either very very long or you have many +memory when your JSON texts are either very very long or you have many short strings. It will also try to downgrade any strings to octet-form if possible: perl stores strings internally either in an encoding called UTF-X or in octet-form. The latter cannot store everything but uses less @@ -276,7 +295,7 @@ strings that look like integers or floats into integers or floats internally (there is no difference on the Perl level), saving space. -=item $json_string = $json->encode ($perl_scalar) +=item $json_text = $json->encode ($perl_scalar) Converts the given Perl data structure (a simple scalar or a reference to a hash or array) to its JSON representation. Simple scalars will be @@ -285,9 +304,9 @@ Perl values (e.g. C) become JSON C values. Neither C nor C values will be generated. -=item $perl_scalar = $json->decode ($json_string) +=item $perl_scalar = $json->decode ($json_text) -The opposite of C: expects a JSON string and tries to parse it, +The opposite of C: expects a JSON text and tries to parse it, returning the resulting simple scalar or reference. Croaks on error. JSON numbers and strings become simple Perl scalars. JSON arrays become @@ -314,7 +333,7 @@ =item object A JSON object becomes a reference to a hash in Perl. No ordering of object -keys is preserved. +keys is preserved (JSON does not preserver object key ordering itself). =item array @@ -360,7 +379,7 @@ Perl hash references become JSON objects. As there is no inherent ordering in hash keys, they will usually be encoded in a pseudo-random order that can change between runs of the same program but stays generally the same -within the single run of a program. JSON::XS can optionally sort the hash +within a single run of a program. JSON::XS can optionally sort the hash keys (determined by the I flag), so the same datastructure will serialise to the same JSON text (given same settings and version of JSON::XS), but this incurs a runtime overhead. @@ -450,7 +469,7 @@ values will make it croak). Does not even generate valid JSON (C<{1,2}> gets converted to C<{1:2}> -which is not a valid JSON string. +which is not a valid JSON text. Unmaintained (maintainer unresponsive for many months, bugs are not getting fixed). @@ -462,7 +481,7 @@ Very inflexible (no human-readable format supported, format pretty much undocumented. I need at least a format for easy reading by humans and a single-line compact format for use in a protocol, and preferably a way to -generate ASCII-only JSON strings). +generate ASCII-only JSON texts). Completely broken (and confusingly documented) Unicode handling (unicode escapes are not working properly, you need to set ImplicitUnicode to @@ -495,7 +514,7 @@ No roundtripping. -Does not generate valid JSON (key strings are often unquoted, empty keys +Does not generate valid JSON texts (key strings are often unquoted, empty keys result in nothing being output) Does not check input for validity. @@ -509,39 +528,49 @@ in the JSON::XS distribution, to make it easy to compare on your own system. -First is a comparison between various modules using a very simple JSON -string, showing the number of encodes/decodes per second (JSON::XS is -the functional interface, while JSON::XS/2 is the OO interface with -pretty-printing and hashkey sorting enabled). +First comes a comparison between various modules using a very short JSON +string: + + {"method": "handleMessage", "params": ["user1", "we were just talking"], "id": null} + +It shows the number of encodes/decodes per second (JSON::XS uses the +functional interface, while JSON::XS/2 uses the OO interface with +pretty-printing and hashkey sorting enabled). Higher is better: module | encode | decode | -----------|------------|------------| - JSON | 14006 | 6820 | - JSON::DWIW | 200937 | 120386 | - JSON::PC | 85065 | 129366 | - JSON::Syck | 59898 | 44232 | - JSON::XS | 1171478 | 342435 | - JSON::XS/2 | 730760 | 328714 | + JSON | 11488.516 | 7823.035 | + JSON::DWIW | 94708.054 | 129094.260 | + JSON::PC | 63884.157 | 128528.212 | + JSON::Syck | 34898.677 | 42096.911 | + JSON::XS | 654027.064 | 396423.669 | + JSON::XS/2 | 371564.190 | 371725.613 | -----------+------------+------------+ -That is, JSON::XS is 6 times faster than than JSON::DWIW and about 80 -times faster than JSON, even with pretty-printing and key sorting. +That is, JSON::XS is more than six times faster than JSON::DWIW on +encoding, more than three times faster on decoding, and about thirty times +faster than JSON, even with pretty-printing and key sorting. -Using a longer test string (roughly 8KB, generated from Yahoo! Locals +Using a longer test string (roughly 18KB, generated from Yahoo! Locals search API (http://nanoref.com/yahooapis/mgPdGg): module | encode | decode | -----------|------------|------------| - JSON | 673 | 38 | - JSON::DWIW | 5271 | 770 | - JSON::PC | 9901 | 2491 | - JSON::Syck | 2360 | 786 | - JSON::XS | 37398 | 3202 | - JSON::XS/2 | 13765 | 3153 | + JSON | 273.023 | 44.674 | + JSON::DWIW | 1089.383 | 1145.704 | + JSON::PC | 3097.419 | 2393.921 | + JSON::Syck | 514.060 | 843.053 | + JSON::XS | 6479.668 | 3636.364 | + JSON::XS/2 | 3774.221 | 3599.124 | -----------+------------+------------+ -Again, JSON::XS leads by far in the encoding case, while still beating -every other module in the decoding case. +Again, JSON::XS leads by far. + +On large strings containing lots of high unicode characters, some modules +(such as JSON::PC) seem to decode faster than JSON::XS, but the result +will be broken due to missing (or wrong) unicode handling. Others refuse +to decode or encode properly, so it was impossible to prepare a fair +comparison table for that case. =head1 RESOURCE LIMITS