purepack

A pure CoffeeScript implemented of Msgpack.

We've made one addition to the spec. When reserved byte 0xc4 prefaces a raw string, the subsequent value is to be interepreted as raw bytes, and not a UTF-8 string.

To force this behavior on the packing side, feed a Uint8Array to the packer (instead of a regular string). Uint8Arrays will automatically be returned from unpacking.

Install

npm install purepack

Where To Use it

Tested and works with browserify, so it's useful for packing and unpacking structures on the browser-side. It also works server-side in node processes. In either case, it finds the fastest buffer objects at its disposal to give you the best performance possible.

API

purepack.pack(obj,encoding,opts)

Pack an object obj.

encoding

After packing, output the result according to the given encoding. Encodings include

• buffer — Output as a buffer.Buffer on node, or a Uint8Array buffer in a browser
• base64 — Output as a standard base64-encoded string (with + and / outputs at positions 62 and 63)
• base64a — Output as base64-encoding, with @ and _ characters rather than the + and / characters. Better for URLs.
• base64x — Output as base64-encoding, with + and - characters rather than the + and / characters. Better for filenames.
• base32 — sfs-style base32-encoding
• hex — Standard base16/hex encoding
• binary — Output as a binary string. Beware, UTF-8 problems ahead!
• ui8a — Synonym for buffer on the browser, or output to a Uint8Array on node.

opts

There are two options currently supported, off by default:

• floats — Use floats rather than doubles when encoding. Useful when saving space
• byte_arrays — Encode Uint8Arrays differently from UTF-8 strings, using the 0xc4 prefix described above.

purepack.unpack(obj,encoding)

Unpack a packed object obj, which has been packed and encoded according to the given encoding. See above for possibilities. Returns a pair [err,res]. err will be null if the unpacking succeeded, or will be non-null and a description if there was an unpacking error.

Building

make setup
make

Testing

make setup
make
make test

Testing will run a series of scripts on your machine using node. It also will ask you to visit a URL with whichever browsers you please to test purepack use via browserify and with your browser's buffer objects.