NAME¶

JSON::Syck - JSON is YAML (but consider using JSON::XS instead!)

SYNOPSIS¶

    use JSON::Syck; # no exports by default 
    my $data = JSON::Syck::Load($json);
    my $json = JSON::Syck::Dump($data);
    # $file can be an IO object, or a filename
    my $data = JSON::Syck::LoadFile($file);
    JSON::Syck::DumpFile($file, $data);
    # Dump into a pre-existing buffer
    my $json;
    JSON::Syck::DumpInto(\$json, $data);

DESCRIPTION¶

JSON::Syck is a syck implementation of JSON parsing and generation. Because JSON is YAML (<http://redhanded.hobix.com/inspect/yamlIsJson.html>), using syck gives you a fast and memory-efficient parser and dumper for JSON data representation.

However, a newer module JSON::XS, has since emerged. It is more flexible, efficient and robust, so please consider using it instead of this module.

DIFFERENCE WITH JSON¶

You might want to know the difference between the JSON module and this one.

Since JSON is a pure-perl module and JSON::Syck is based on libsyck, JSON::Syck is supposed to be very fast and memory efficient. See chansen's benchmark table at <http://idisk.mac.com/christian.hansen/Public/perl/serialize.pl>

JSON.pm comes with dozens of ways to do the same thing and lots of options, while JSON::Syck doesn't. There's only "Load" and "Dump".

Oh, and JSON::Syck doesn't use camelCase method names :-)

REFERENCES¶

UTF-8 FLAGS¶

By default this module doesn't touch any of utf-8 flags set in strings, and assumes UTF-8 bytes to be passed and emit.

However, when you set $JSON::Syck::ImplicitUnicode to 1, this module properly decodes UTF-8 binaries and sets UTF-8 flag everywhere, as in:

  JSON (UTF-8 bytes)   => Perl (UTF-8 flagged)
  JSON (UTF-8 flagged) => Perl (UTF-8 flagged)
  Perl (UTF-8 bytes)   => JSON (UTF-8 flagged)
  Perl (UTF-8 flagged) => JSON (UTF-8 flagged)

By default, JSON::Syck::Dump will only transverse up to 512 levels of a datastructure in order to avoid an infinite loop when it is presented with an circular reference.

However, you set $JSON::Syck::MaxLevels to a larger value if you have very complex structures.

Unfortunately, there's no implicit way to dump Perl UTF-8 flagged data structure to utf-8 encoded JSON. To do this, simply use Encode module, e.g.:

  use Encode;
  use JSON::Syck qw(Dump);
  my $json = encode_utf8( Dump($data) );

Alternatively you can use Encode::JavaScript::UCS to encode Unicode strings as in %uXXXX form.

  use Encode;
  use Encode::JavaScript::UCS;
  use JSON::Syck qw(Dump);
  my $json_unicode_escaped = encode( 'JavaScript-UCS', Dump($data) );

QUOTING¶

According to the JSON specification, all JSON strings are to be double-quoted. However, when embedding JavaScript in HTML attributes, it may be more convenient to use single quotes.

Set $JSON::Syck::SingleQuote to 1 will make both "Dump" and "Load" expect single-quoted string literals.

BUGS¶

Dumping into tied (or other magic variables) with "DumpInto" might not work properly in all cases.

When dumping with "DumpFile", some spacing might be wrong and $JSON::Syck::SingleQuote might be handled incorrectly.

SEE ALSO¶

JSON::XS, YAML::Syck

AUTHORS¶

Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org>

Tatsuhiko Miyagawa <miyagawa@gmail.com>

COPYRIGHT¶

Copyright 2005-2009 by Audrey Tang <cpan@audreyt.org>.

This software is released under the MIT license cited below.

The libsyck code bundled with this library is released by "why the lucky stiff", under a BSD-style license. See the COPYING file for details.