NAME

PLON - Serialize object to Perl code

SYNOPSIS

use PLON;

my $plon = encode_plon([]);
# $plon is `[]`

DESCRIPTION

PLON is yet another serialization library for Perl5, has the JSON.pm like interface.

WHY?

I need data dumper library supports JSON::XS/JSON::PP like interface. I use JSON::XS really hard. Then, I want to use other serialization library with JSON::XS/JSON::PP's interface.

Data::Dumper escapes multi byte chars. When I want copy-and-paste from Data::Dumper's output to my test code, I need to un-escape \x{5963} by my hand. PLON.pm don't escape multi byte characters by default.

STABILITY

This release is a prototype. Every API will change without notice. (But, I may not remove encode_plon($scalar) interface. You can use this.)

I need your feedback. If you have ideas or comments, please report to Github Issues.

OBJECT-ORIENTED INTERFACE

The object oriented interface lets you configure your own encoding or decoding style, within the limits of supported formats.

• $plon = PLON->new()

  Creates a new PLON object that can be used to de/encode PLON strings. All boolean flags described below are by default disabled.

• $plon = $plon->pretty([$enabled])

  This enables (or disables) all of the indent, space_before and space_after (and in the future possibly more) flags in one call to generate the most readable (or most compact) form possible.

• $plon->ascii([$enabled])

• my $enabled = $plon->get_ascii()

    $plon = $plon->ascii([$enable])
  
    $enabled = $plon->get_ascii
  

  If $enable is true (or missing), then the encode method will not generate characters outside the code range 0..127. Any Unicode characters outside that range will be escaped using either a \x{XXXX} escape sequence.

  If $enable is false, then the encode method will not escape Unicode characters unless required by the PLON syntax or other flags. This results in a faster and more compact format.

    PLON->new->ascii(1)->encode([chr 0x10401])
    => ["\x{10401}"]
  

• $plon->deparse([$enabled])

• my $enabled = $plon->get_deparse()

  If $enable is true (or missing), then the encode method will de-parse the code by B::Deparse. Otherwise, encoder generates sub { "DUMMY" } like Data::Dumper.

• $plon->canonical([$enabled])

• my $enabled = $plon->get_canonical()

  If $enable is true (or missing), then the "encode" method will output PLON objects by sorting their keys. This is adding a comparatively high overhead.

PLON Spec

• PLON only supports UTF-8. Serialized PLON string must be UTF-8.
• PLON string must be eval-able.

LICENSE

Copyright (C) Tokuhiro Matsuno.

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

AUTHOR

Tokuhiro Matsuno tokuhirom@gmail.com

SEE ALSO

• Data::Dumper
• Data::Pond
• Acme::PSON