/ 
JSON-DWIW-0.05
River stage zero No dependents
/ JSON::DWIW

NAME

JSON::DWIW - JSON converter that Does What I Want

SYNOPSIS

use JSON::DWIW;
my $json_obj = JSON::DWIW->new;
my $data = $json_obj->from_json($json_str);
my $str = $json_obj->to_json($data);

my $data = JSON::DWIW->from_json($json_str);
my $str = JSON:DWIW->to_json($data);

my $data = JSON::DWIW->from_json($json_str, \%options);
my $str = JSON::DWIW->to_json($data, \%options);

use JSON::DWIW qw(:all);
my $data = from_json($json_str);
my $str = to_json($data);

DESCRIPTION

Other JSON modules require setting several parameters before calling the conversion methods to do what I want. This module does things by default that I think should be done when working with JSON in Perl. This module also encodes and decodes faster than JSON.pm and JSON::Syck in my benchmarks.

This means that any piece of data in Perl will get converted to something in JSON instead of throwing an exception. It also means that output will be strict JSON, while accepted input will be flexible, without having to set any options.

Encoding

Perl objects get encoded as their underlying data structure, with the exception of Math::BigInt and Math::BigFloat, which will be output as numbers. For example, a blessed hash ref will be represented as an object in JSON, a blessed array will be represented as an array. etc. A reference to a scalar is dereferenced and represented as the scalar itself. Globs, filehandles, etc., get stringified.

Decoding

When decoding, null, true, and false become undef, 1, and 0, repectively.

The parser is flexible in what it accepts and handles some things not in the JSON spec:

quotes
Both single and double quotes are allowed for quoting a string, e.g.,

   [ "string1", 'string2' ]
bare keys
Object/hash keys can be bare if they look like an identifier, e.g.,

   { var1: "myval1", var2: "myval2" }
extra commas
Extra commas in objects/hashes and arrays are ignored, e.g.,

   [1,2,3,,,4,]

becomes a 4 element array containing 1, 2, 3, and 4.

METHODS

new(\%options)

Create a new JSON::DWIW object.

%options is an optional hash of parameters that will change the
bahavior of this module when encoding to JSON.  You may also
pass these options as the second argument to to_json() and
from_json().  The following options are supported:

bare_keys

If set to a true value, keys in hashes will not be quoted when
converted to JSON if they look like identifiers.  This is valid
Javascript in current browsers, but not in JSON.

use_exceptions

If set to a true value, errors found when converting to or from
JSON will result in die() being called with the error message.
The default is to not use exceptions.

bad_char_policy

This options indicates what should be done if bad characters are
found, e.g., bad utf-8 sequence.  The default is to return an
error and drop all the output.

The following values for bad_char_policy are supported:

error

default action, i.e., drop any output built up and return an error

convert

convert to a utf-8 char using the value of the byte as a code point

pass_through

Ignore the error and pass through the raw bytes (invalid JSON)

pretty

Add white space to the output when calling to_json() to make the
output easier for humans to read.

to_json($data)

Returns the JSON representation of $data (arbitrary
datastructure).  See http://www.json.org/ for details.

Called in list context, this method returns a list whose first
element is the encoded JSON string and the second element is an
error message, if any.  If $error_msg is defined, there was a
problem converting to JSON.  You may also pass a second argument
to to_json() that is a reference to a hash of options -- see
new().

    my $json_str = JSON::DWIW->to_json($data);

    my ($json_str, $error_msg) = JSON::DWIW->to_json($data);

    my $json_str = JSON::DWIW->to_json($data, { use_exceptions => 1 });

Aliases: toJson, toJSON, objToJson

my ($data, $error_msg) = from_json($json_str)

Returns the Perl data structure for the given JSON string.  The
value for true becomes 1, false becomes 0, and null gets
converted to undef.

Called in list context, this method returns a list whose first
element is the data and the second element is the error message,
if any.  If $error_msg is defined, there was a problem parsing
the JSON string, and $data will be undef.  You may also pass a
second argument to from_json() that is a reference to a hash of
options -- see new().

    my $data = from_json($json_str)

    my ($data, $error_msg) = from_json($json_str)

    my $data = from_json($json_str, { use_exceptions => 1 })


Aliases: fromJson, fromJSON, jsonToObj

BENCHMARKS

Latest benchmarks against JSON and JSON::Syck run on my MacBook
Pro:

Using a small data set:

   Encode (50000 iterations):
   ==========================
                 Rate       JSON JSON::Syck JSON::DWIW
   JSON        2648/s         --       -72%       -86%
   JSON::Syck  9416/s       256%         --       -51%
   JSON::DWIW 19380/s       632%       106%         --


   Decode (50000 iterations):
   ==========================
                 Rate       JSON JSON::Syck JSON::DWIW
   JSON        2288/s         --       -81%       -93%
   JSON::Syck 12195/s       433%         --       -60%
   JSON::DWIW 30675/s      1240%       152%         --


Using a larger data set (8KB JSON string) generated from Yahoo!
Local's search API (http://nanoref.com/yahooapis/mgPdGg)


   Encode (1000 iterations):
   =========================
               Rate       JSON JSON::Syck JSON::DWIW
   JSON       133/s         --       -54%       -66%
   JSON::Syck 289/s       118%         --       -26%
   JSON::DWIW 389/s       193%        35%         --


   Decode (1000 iterations):
   =========================
                Rate       JSON JSON::Syck JSON::DWIW
   JSON       35.5/s         --       -92%       -94%
   JSON::Syck  427/s      1103%         --       -25%
   JSON::DWIW  571/s      1508%        34%         --

DEPENDENCIES

Perl 5.6 or later

BUGS/LIMITATIONS

If you find a bug, please file a tracker request at <http://rt.cpan.org/Public/Dist/Display.html?Name=JSON-DWIW>.

When decoding a JSON string, it is a assumed to be utf-8 encoded. The module should detect whether the input is utf-8, utf-16, or utf-32.

AUTHOR

Don Owens <don@regexguy.com>

LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2007 Don Owens <don@regexguy.com>. All rights reserved.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself. See perlartistic.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

SEE ALSO

JSON
JSON::Syck (included in YAML::Syck)

VERSION

0.05