bser

What is bser?

The 'bser' npm package is designed to encode and decode Binary Serialized Object Representation (BSER) format. BSER is a binary format used primarily for efficient data serialization and communication, particularly in applications where performance is critical. It is commonly used in conjunction with the Watchman file watching service.

What are bser's main functionalities?

Encoding to BSER

This feature allows you to encode JavaScript objects into BSER format. The example shows how to encode a simple object containing a greeting message.

const bser = require('bser');
const data = { hello: 'world' };
const encoded = bser.dumpToBuffer(data);
console.log(encoded);

Decoding from BSER

This feature enables the decoding of BSER formatted data back into JavaScript objects. The code sample demonstrates decoding a BSER encoded buffer to retrieve the original object.

const bser = require('bser');
const encoded = Buffer.from([0, 1, 3, 11, 1, 5, 104, 101, 108, 108, 111, 2, 5, 119, 111, 114, 108, 100]);
const decoded = bser.loadFromBuffer(encoded);
console.log(decoded);

Other packages similar to bser

protobufjs

Protobufjs is a package that provides tools to encode and decode Protocol Buffers, a language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. It is similar to bser in terms of providing efficient data serialization but uses the Protocol Buffers format, which is more widely adopted and supported across different programming languages.

msgpack5

Msgpack5 is a package for encoding and decoding MessagePack, another efficient binary serialization format. Like bser, it aims for high performance and compact binary size. However, MessagePack is more commonly used and has implementations in various programming languages, making it more versatile for cross-platform applications.

README

BSER Binary Protocol

For more details about the protocol see Watchman's docs.

API

var bser = require('bser');

Buffer

Create

var bunser = new bser.BunserBuf();

Append

bunser.append(buf);

Read

bunser.on('value', function(obj) {
  console.log(obj);
});

Dump

bser.dumpToBuffer(obj);

Example

Read BSER from socket:

var bunser = new bser.BunserBuf();

bunser.on('value', function(obj) {
  console.log('data from socket', obj);		   
});

var socket = net.connect('/socket');

socket.on('data', function(buf) {
  bunser.append(buf);
});

Write BSER to socket:

socket.write(bser.dumpToBuffer(obj));