object-encode

Object Encode

Sometimes you need to safely encode an object into a string and then decode it back into an object.

My Use Case

My desire to encode/decode objects to and from strings came when I needed time based database tables so that I can easily partition & 'retire' old data but keep it on disk in case I needed it.

For this use case, I decided that users would request for data using a hash id. So I decided to code all the info necessary into the hash (string) i.e {user:1, database:'2016-10-09_data'} translates to a hash id like 'x2YWw6bGV2ZWxfMV9WYWwpKSxudWxsOi0tLHRoaXM6dGhhdCk=' which the user then uses.

You get the point?

OK, How To Use

First install via npm npm install --save object-encode

Then initialize and (en/de)code away!

var objCodec = require('object-encode');

var object = {
  this : 'that',
  foo : 'bar',
  "null" : false,
  nested : {
    "level1" : {
      val : 'level 1 Val',
      "level2" : {
        val : "level 2 Val"
      }
    }
  }
};

//encode object using specified algorithm
var encodedString = objCodec.encode_object( object);
console.log(encodedString);

//decode string back to the object
var decodedObject = objCodec.decode_object(encodedString);   
console.log(decodedObject);

API

This module uses juri to encode/decode objects to strings and string-codec to further encode those strings using one of hex, base64, ascii85, base91, rot5, rot13, rot18, rot47, rev, url or punycode algorithms.

.encode_object(object, [algorithm, runs])

Takes an object and encodes it using the algorithm given into a string. Default algorithm is base64.

If you so desire, you can increase runs to re-encode the encoded string; This is often of not much use unless you are trying to further obscure your data/string.

.decode_object(string, [algorithm, runs])

Takes an string and decodescodes it using the algorithm given back to an object. Default algorithm is base64.

If all you need is string encoding & decoding...

I have also exposed two other methods:

• encode(string, [algorithm, runs])
• decode(string, [algorithm, runs])

To help you encode/decode strings.

What's Your Use Case?

I needed hash ids that could be shared via web addresses and therefore required a method that them short and URL-safe. But that might not be what you want to do with your encoded objects.

Depending on your use case, you can choose another algorithm and see how things go.

Install dev dependecies and run test.js to see how they compare.