// Copyright (c) 2012-2015 Ugorji Nwoke. All rights reserved. // Use of this source code is governed by a MIT license found in the LICENSE file. /* Package codec provides a High Performance, Feature-Rich Idiomatic Go 1.4+ codec/encoding library for binc, msgpack, cbor, json. Supported Serialization formats are: - msgpack: https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack - binc: http://github.com/ugorji/binc - cbor: http://cbor.io http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7049 - json: http://json.org http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7159 - simple: To install: go get github.com/ugorji/go/codec This package will carefully use 'unsafe' for performance reasons in specific places. You can build without unsafe use by passing the safe or appengine tag i.e. 'go install -tags=safe ...'. Note that unsafe is only supported for the last 3 go sdk versions e.g. current go release is go 1.9, so we support unsafe use only from go 1.7+ . This is because supporting unsafe requires knowledge of implementation details. For detailed usage information, read the primer at http://ugorji.net/blog/go-codec-primer . The idiomatic Go support is as seen in other encoding packages in the standard library (ie json, xml, gob, etc). Rich Feature Set includes: - Simple but extremely powerful and feature-rich API - Support for go1.4 and above, while selectively using newer APIs for later releases - Good code coverage ( > 70% ) - Very High Performance. Our extensive benchmarks show us outperforming Gob, Json, Bson, etc by 2-4X. - Careful selected use of 'unsafe' for targeted performance gains. 100% mode exists where 'unsafe' is not used at all. - Lock-free (sans mutex) concurrency for scaling to 100's of cores - Multiple conversions: Package coerces types where appropriate e.g. decode an int in the stream into a float, etc. - Corner Cases: Overflows, nil maps/slices, nil values in streams are handled correctly - Standard field renaming via tags - Support for omitting empty fields during an encoding - Encoding from any value and decoding into pointer to any value (struct, slice, map, primitives, pointers, interface{}, etc) - Extensions to support efficient encoding/decoding of any named types - Support encoding.(Binary|Text)(M|Unm)arshaler interfaces - Decoding without a schema (into a interface{}). Includes Options to configure what specific map or slice type to use when decoding an encoded list or map into a nil interface{} - Encode a struct as an array, and decode struct from an array in the data stream - Comprehensive support for anonymous fields - Fast (no-reflection) encoding/decoding of common maps and slices - Code-generation for faster performance. - Support binary (e.g. messagepack, cbor) and text (e.g. json) formats - Support indefinite-length formats to enable true streaming (for formats which support it e.g. json, cbor) - Support canonical encoding, where a value is ALWAYS encoded as same sequence of bytes. This mostly applies to maps, where iteration order is non-deterministic. - NIL in data stream decoded as zero value - Never silently skip data when decoding. User decides whether to return an error or silently skip data when keys or indexes in the data stream do not map to fields in the struct. - Detect and error when encoding a cyclic reference (instead of stack overflow shutdown) - Encode/Decode from/to chan types (for iterative streaming support) - Drop-in replacement for encoding/json. `json:` key in struct tag supported. - Provides a RPC Server and Client Codec for net/rpc communication protocol. - Handle unique idiosyncrasies of codecs e.g. - For messagepack, configure how ambiguities in handling raw bytes are resolved - For messagepack, provide rpc server/client codec to support msgpack-rpc protocol defined at: https://github.com/msgpack-rpc/msgpack-rpc/blob/master/spec.md Extension Support Users can register a function to handle the encoding or decoding of their custom types. There are no restrictions on what the custom type can be. Some examples: type BisSet []int type BitSet64 uint64 type UUID string type MyStructWithUnexportedFields struct { a int; b bool; c []int; } type GifImage struct { ... } As an illustration, MyStructWithUnexportedFields would normally be encoded as an empty map because it has no exported fields, while UUID would be encoded as a string. However, with extension support, you can encode any of these however you like. Custom Encoding and Decoding This package maintains symmetry in the encoding and decoding halfs. We determine how to encode or decode by walking this decision tree - is type a codec.Selfer? - is there an extension registered for the type? - is format binary, and is type a encoding.BinaryMarshaler and BinaryUnmarshaler? - is format specifically json, and is type a encoding/json.Marshaler and Unmarshaler? - is format text-based, and type an encoding.TextMarshaler? - else we use a pair of functions based on the "kind" of the type e.g. map, slice, int64, etc This symmetry is important to reduce chances of issues happening because the encoding and decoding sides are out of sync e.g. decoded via very specific encoding.TextUnmarshaler but encoded via kind-specific generalized mode. Consequently, if a type only defines one-half of the symmetry (e.g. it implements UnmarshalJSON() but not MarshalJSON() ), then that type doesn't satisfy the check and we will continue walking down the decision tree. RPC RPC Client and Server Codecs are implemented, so the codecs can be used with the standard net/rpc package. Usage The Handle is SAFE for concurrent READ, but NOT SAFE for concurrent modification. The Encoder and Decoder are NOT safe for concurrent use. Consequently, the usage model is basically: - Create and initialize the Handle before any use. Once created, DO NOT modify it. - Multiple Encoders or Decoders can now use the Handle concurrently. They only read information off the Handle (never write). - However, each Encoder or Decoder MUST not be used concurrently - To re-use an Encoder/Decoder, call Reset(...) on it first. This allows you use state maintained on the Encoder/Decoder. Sample usage model: // create and configure Handle var ( bh codec.BincHandle mh codec.MsgpackHandle ch codec.CborHandle ) mh.MapType = reflect.TypeOf(map[string]interface{}(nil)) // configure extensions // e.g. for msgpack, define functions and enable Time support for tag 1 // mh.SetExt(reflect.TypeOf(time.Time{}), 1, myExt) // create and use decoder/encoder var ( r io.Reader w io.Writer b []byte h = &bh // or mh to use msgpack ) dec = codec.NewDecoder(r, h) dec = codec.NewDecoderBytes(b, h) err = dec.Decode(&v) enc = codec.NewEncoder(w, h) enc = codec.NewEncoderBytes(&b, h) err = enc.Encode(v) //RPC Server go func() { for { conn, err := listener.Accept() rpcCodec := codec.GoRpc.ServerCodec(conn, h) //OR rpcCodec := codec.MsgpackSpecRpc.ServerCodec(conn, h) rpc.ServeCodec(rpcCodec) } }() //RPC Communication (client side) conn, err = net.Dial("tcp", "localhost:5555") rpcCodec := codec.GoRpc.ClientCodec(conn, h) //OR rpcCodec := codec.MsgpackSpecRpc.ClientCodec(conn, h) client := rpc.NewClientWithCodec(rpcCodec) Running Tests To run tests, use the following: go test To run the full suite of tests, use the following: go test -tags alltests -run Suite You can run the tag 'safe' to run tests or build in safe mode. e.g. go test -tags safe -run Json go test -tags "alltests safe" -run Suite Running Benchmarks Please see http://github.com/ugorji/go-codec-bench . Caveats Struct fields matching the following are ignored during encoding and decoding - struct tag value set to - - func, complex numbers, unsafe pointers - unexported and not embedded - unexported embedded non-struct - unexported embedded pointers (from go1.10) Every other field in a struct will be encoded/decoded. Embedded fields are encoded as if they exist in the top-level struct, with some caveats. See Encode documentation. */ package codec