messagepack 0.1.0

Streaming API implementation of MessagePack binary serialization format - msgpack.

Streaming API implementation of MessagePack binary serialization format - msgpack.

Getting Started

Packer and Unpacker classes provide Streaming API for serializing and deserializing data.

Example - Simple

Packer

import 'package:messagepack/messagepack.dart';

final p = Packer();
p.packInt(1);
p.packInt(2);
final bytes = p.takeBytes(); //Uint8List
send(bytes) //send to server

Unpacker

final List<int> rawBytes = receive() // receive List<int> bytes from server
final u = Unpacker.fromList(rawBytes);
final n1 = u.unpackInt();
final n2 = u.unpackInt();
// check values in test
expect(n1, equals(1));
expect(n2, equals(2));

Example - Different types

Packer

final p = Packer();
p.packInt(1);
p.packBool(true);
final bytes = p.takeBytes(); //Uint8List
send(bytes) //send to server

Unpacker

final List<int> rawBytes = receive() // receive List<int> bytes from server
final u = Unpacker.fromList(rawBytes);
print(u.unpackInt());
print(u.unpackBool());

Example - complex

final p = Packer()
    ..packInt(99)
    ..packBool(true)
    ..packString('hi')
    ..packNull()
    ..packString(null)
    ..packBinary(<int>[104, 105]) // hi codes
    ..packIterableLength(2) // pack 2 elements list ['elem1',3.14]
    ..packString('elem1')
    ..packDouble(3.14)
    ..packString('continue to pack other elements')
    ..packMapLength(2) //map {'key1':false, 'key2',3.14}
    ..packString('key1') //pack key1
    ..packBool(false) //pack value1
    ..packString('key12') //pack key1
    ..packDouble(3.13); //pack value1

  final bytes = p.takeBytes();
  final u = Unpacker(bytes);
  //Unpack the same sequential/streaming way

NOTES

Packing Maps and Iterables

• firstly, pack Map or Iterable header length
• secondly, manually pack all items - that's all

Only need put length header before packing items

After packing all items no need to stop or finish or end this map / iterable

final list = ['i1','i2'];
final map = {'k1': 11, 'k2': 22};
final p = Packer();
p.packIterableLength(list.length);
list.forEach(p.packString);
p.packMapLength(map.length);
map.forEach((key, v) {
  p.packString(key);
  p.packInt(v);
});
final bytes = p.takeBytes();

More examples

More examples can be found in:

• test/messagepack_test.dart
• example/example.dart

Don't use Packer after calling .takeBytes()

Internally it cleans up underlying _builder, so further behaviour will be useless.
Call .takeBytes() only once. It returns Uint8List of packed bytes. After that call don't continue to use Packer instance (don't call .packXXX() methods and .takeBytes()) Instead, create new Packer instance method.

Roadmap

• Sooner will be added convenient functions for automatically packing and unpacking from dart list / map

Contributing

If you have advice how to improve library code or making it lighter or blazingly faster - don't hesitate to open an issue or pull request!