lib-js-util-marshal

Simple library for serializing and deserializing Ruby's Marshal byte sequences in NodeJS.

Supported features

• dumping integers
• dumping raw strings (ivar strings don't exist in js so raw strings are encoded in utf-8)
• dumping floats (1.0 is dumped as int type due to NodeJS number type)
• dumping nil values (null values)
• dumping boolean values
• dumping symbols (js symbols are converted to ruby symbols)
• dumping symbol links (each js symbol is converted to symbol link when necessary)
• dumping arrays
• dumping hashes (non plain objects will throw)
• loading integers
• loading raw strings
• loading ivar strings
• loading floats (1.0 is loaded as int type due to NodeJS number type)
• loading nil values (are converted to null on js)
• loading boolean values
• loading symbols (in js are converted to strings)
• loading symbol links (in js are converted to strings)
• loading arrays
• loading hashes

Unsupported features

• bumping/loading bignums
• bumping/loading objects
• bumping/loading object links
• bumping/loading classes
• bumping/loading modules
• bumping/loading regular expressions
• and bumping/loading other types

Installing

npm install @bitfinex/lib-js-util-marshal

Testing

npm test

Usage

'use strict'

const { inspect } = require('util')
const marshal = require('@bitfinex/lib-js-util-marshal')

const myObj = {
  foo: 'bar',
  1: true,
  data: [
    'a', null, false, -3.14,
    [1, 2, { name: 'joe' }]
  ]
}

const serialized = marshal.dump(myObj).toString('hex')
console.log(serialized)
/* prints
0408 7b08 3a06 3154 3a08 666f 6f22 0862 6172 3a09 6461 7461 5b0a 2206 6130 
4666 0a2d 332e 3134 5b08 6906 6907 7b06 3a09 6e61 6d65 2208 6a6f 65
*/

const deserialized = marshal.load(Buffer.from(serialized, 'hex'))
console.log(inspect(deserialized, false, 10, true))
/* prints
{
  '1': true,
  foo: 'bar',
  data: [ 'a', null, false, -3.14, [ 1, 2, { name: 'joe' } ] ]
}
*/

Notes

Detailed info on how object marshaling works in ruby can be found this blog series.