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