SerializeInstance

A way to truly serialize & deserialize instance objects in NodeJS.

Don't you wish you could serialize an instance of a class into a string and get a clone of the original object complete with all the methods and prototype chain of the original upon deserialization?

This library does just that.

Installation

$ npm install --save serialize-instance

// or
$ yarn add serialize-instance

Example Usage

import {Serializer} from 'serialize-instance';
import {MyClass} from './MyClass';

// Serialization
let obj = new MyClass('Tomatoes');           //Instance Object
let serialized = Serializer.serialize(obj);  //Generic Object
let jsonified = JSON.stringify(serialized);  //JSON string


// Deserialization
let objectified = JSON.parse(jsonified);                //Generic Object
let deserialized = Serializer.deserialize(objectified); //Instance object


obj.constructor === deserialized.constructor // TRUE

Limitations

• The constructor of all instances to be serialized must be exported from their modules.
• The constructor of an instance must not be defined in the entry file.

Reasons

This library depends on a WeakMap populated from node's require.cache therefore in order to recognize and store constructor metadata, the constructor must be accessible in require.cache

Warning

This was mostly just a proof of concept and is currently being used in development for a very narrow case of serializing a few objects with Buffers and Dates to redis cache.

Use this library at your own risk.

License

MIT