Arrow Code use unicode combining character "͢ " in string to store types that normally not allowed in JSON
// import Arrow from 'arrow-code'; const Arrow = require('arrow-code').default; // encode as JSON Arrow.encodeJSON( [ NaN, -Infinity, 9007199254740997n, new Date(), new Uint8Array([1,2,3,4]), undefined ], 1); // returns: [ "͢NaN", "͢-Inf", "͢n:9007199254740997", // BigInt "͢Date:2018-02-07T19:07:18.207Z", // Date "͢Bin:wFg{A", // Uint8Array "͢" // undefined ]
(Arrow.encodeJSON vs MsgPack and BSON)
Arrow Code allows additional data types to be serialized in JSON, such as binary date (Uint8Array) and Date, while still keeps the verbose nature of JSON.
The output string is still a 100% valid JSON, and compatible with any JSON editing/parsing tool or library. This makes Arrow Code much easier to debug and trouble shoot than binary formats like BSON and MsgPack
Modern browsers and nodejs are highly optimized for JSON. This allows Arrow Code to be encoded and decoded faster than the other 2 formats in most of the cases.
Benchmark with sample data on Chrome 77, Firefox 69
Time are all in ms, smaller is better
| Chrome Encode |
Chrome Decode |
Firefox Encode |
Firefox Decode |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arrow Code | 0.1434 | 0.1742 | 0.1708 | 0.1301 |
| MsgPack | 0.2893 | 0.1818 | 0.6689 | 0.1933 |
| BSON | 0.1573 | 0.1879 | 0.3945 | 0.5648 |
new Arrow({ // whether to encode Binary ( Uint8Array ), default true, which uses Base93 encoding encodeBinary?: boolean | 'base64', // whether to encode Date, default true encodeDate?: boolean, // whether to encode BigInt, default true encodeBigInt?: boolean, })
| API | comments |
|---|---|
| encodeJSON( inpt: unknown, space?: number, sortKeys = false) | encode as JSON, can be used as static api |
| decodeJSON( inpt: string) | decode JSON, can be used as static api |
| encode( inpt: unknown) | encode to String, can be used as static api |
| decode( inpt: string) | decode String, can be used as static api |
| register( key: string, type: Constructor, encoder, decoder) | register a custom type |
Arrow Code's register API make it really easy to add custom type
// custom type class MyClass { constructor(str) { this.myStr = str; } } let arrow = new Arrow(); arrow.register( 'My', // prefix MyClass, // type (obj) => obj.myStr, // custom encoder (str) => new MyClass(str) // custom decoder ); myJson.encodeJSON(new MyClass("hello")); // "͢My:hello"
Arrow Code use Base93 by default to encode binary data, it's more compact than Base64.
If you prefer Base64, set binaryFormat to base64 in the Arrow Code constructor
const Arrow = require('arrow-code').default; // use Base64 instead of Base93 const arrow = new Arrow({binaryFormat: 'base64'}); arrow.encodeJSON({binary: new Uint8Array([1,2,3,4])}); // {"binary":"͢B64:AQIDBA=="}