mint-bos

BOS (Binary Object Serializer) is a lightweight NodeJS object serializer meant to allow transport of JSON type data in binary format. It allows transporting large binary data more efficiently.

This module has been developed and tested on Node v10.16.3 and Ubuntu 16.04 for the Zcoin mining pool at MintPond.

Install

Install as Dependency in NodeJS Project

# Install from Github git package

sudo apt-get install build-essential
npm install mintpond/mint-bos --save

-or-

# Install from Github NPM repository

sudo apt-get install build-essential
npm config set @mintpond:registry https://npm.pkg.github.com/mintpond
npm config set //npm.pkg.github.com/:_authToken <MY_GITHUB_AUTH_TOKEN>

npm install @mintpond/mint-bos@2.0.1 --save

Usage

Serializer

const bos = require('@mintpond/mint-bos');

const obj = {
    name: "object1",
    number: 1.3,
    bool: true,
    array: ["string", 1, 2.3, false],
    obj: {
        str: "this is a string",
        num: 1,
        bool: true,
        array: [0]
    },
    buffer: Buffer.alloc(4, 1)
}

const bufferData = bos.serialize(obj);

Deserializer

const bos = require('@mintpond/mint-bos');

if (bos.validate(bufferData, 0)) {
    const obj = bos.deserialize(bufferData, 0);
}

Functions

serialize(obj)

Serializes an object (obj) and returns a Buffer with serialized data.

The object can be a string, number, boolean, object, array, null, or Buffer. An object may contain any of the mentioned data types. Functions cannot be serialized and will cause an error, however an object that contains a toJSON function will be serialized according to the value returned from the toJSON function.

Circular references in an object will cause an exception to be thrown.

validate(bufferData, start, dataLen)

Quickly validates serialized data by ensuring the supplied Buffer data (bufferData) is complete.

The optional start index is the index position in the bufferData where the serialized data to validate begins. If the start index is not supplied, the default value of 0 is used.

The optional dataLen is the number of bytes after the start index to consider for validation. If omitted or value is 0, the length of the dataBuffer minus the start index is used.

Returns true if validated, otherwise false is returned. A value of true does not guarantee that the data is valid.

deserialize(bufferData, start)

Deserializes binary data in a Buffer (bufferData) into a Javascript value. (i.e. a serialized array is returned as an array).

The optional start index is the index position in the bufferData where the data to deserialize begins. If the start index is not supplied, the default value of 0 is used.

Returns the deserialized javascript value.

readSize(bufferData, start)

Read the size of serialized data in a buffer as specified by the serialized data.

The optional start index is the index position in the bufferData where the data to read begins. If the start index is not supplied, the default value of 0 is used.

Returns the size of the serialized data or -1 if the data isn't valid. (Receiving a size value does not guarantee that the data is valid)

Binary Format

See the separate document detailing the binary format.