ACOS JSON Encoder for Websocket Networking

Efficiently encode your JSON object or array into serialized bytes for primitive types, also includes a string dictionary to reduce bandwidth bytes transmitted to players.

This package should be used in combination with the acos-json-delta to maximize bandwidth reduction.

Installation

npm i acos-json-encoder

Usage

CommonJS (nodejs)

const { encode, decode, createDefaultDict } = require("acos-json-encoder");

ES6 (webpack, vite, etc)

import {encode, decode, createDefaultDict} = require("acos-json-encoder");

Encoding and Decoding example

// example dictionary to match any strings that might appear in JSON
// this will reduce these strings into two bytes when detected
let myDictionary = [
  "name",
  "rank",
  "score",
  "rating",
  "teamid",
  "ready",
  "type",
  "team_o",
  "team_x",
];

// example JSON data to encode/decode
let jsonData = {
  iobYl: {
    name: "Player2326",
    rank: 0,
    score: 0,
    rating: 2636,
    teamid: "team_o",
    ready: true,
    type: "X",
  },
  DjTS3: {
    name: "Player7145",
    rank: 0,
    score: 0,
    rating: 2364,
    teamid: "team_x",
    ready: true,
    type: "O",
  },
};

// set the dictionary to use by default
createDefaultDict(myDictionary);

// encode and serialize the data into bytes
let jsonEncoded = encode(jsonData);

// decode the bytes back into a JSON string
let decoded = decode(jsonEncoded);

// validate the original matches the decoded
if (JSON.stringify(jsonData) == JSON.stringify(decoded)) {
  console.log("Encoding MATCHES");
}

// print byte sizes
console.log("JSON string size: ", JSON.stringify(jsonData).length);
console.log("Encoded JSON size:", jsonEncoded.byteLength);

// -------- output --------------
// Encoding MATCHES
// JSON string size:  211
// Encoded JSON size: 94

Methods

createDefaultDict(dictionary)

Setup the default dictionary to use by this package.

Parameters

• dictionary (array of strings) - dictionary to use for this encoding.

Returns

Dictionary object used internally. You should not need to use it.

.

encode(json, [dictionary])

Parameters

• json (object or array) - the data you want to encode into bytes
• dictionary (array of strings) - OPTIONAL dictionary to use for this encoding.

Encode the JSON data with optional dictionary. If no dictionary specified will use the one set using createDefaultDict.

Returns

A byte array of type Uint8Array. Compatible with WebSocket's send using bytes instead of string.

.

decode(bytes, [dictionary])

Parameters

• bytes (byte array) - the byte data to decode into JSON data
• dictionary (array of strings) - OPTIONAL dictionary to use for this encoding.

Decode the byte array with optional dictionary. If no dictionary specified will use the one set using createDefaultDict.

Returns

JSON data. Compatible with WebSocket's receive callback using the message raw data in byte format.