
= MessagePack

MessagePack[http://msgpack.org] is an efficient binary serialization format.
It lets you exchange data among multiple languages like JSON but it's faster and smaller.
For example, small integers (like flags or error code) are encoded into a single byte,
and typical short strings only require an extra byte in addition to the strings themselves.

If you ever wished to use JSON for convenience (storing an image with metadata) but could
not for technical reasons (binary data, size, speed...), MessagePack is a perfect replacement.

    require 'msgpack'
    msg = [1,2,3].to_msgpack  #=> "\x93\x01\x02\x03"
    MessagePack.unpack(msg)   #=> [1,2,3]

Use RubyGems to install:

    gem install msgpack

or build msgpack-ruby and install:

    bundle
    rake
    gem install --local pkg/msgpack


= Use cases

* Create REST API returing MessagePack using Rails + [RABL](https://github.com/nesquena/rabl)
* Store objects efficiently serialized by msgpack on memcached or Redis
  * In fact Redis supports msgpack in EVAL-scripts[http://redis.io/commands/eval]
* Upload data in efficient format from mobile devices such as smartphones
  * MessagePack works on iPhone/iPad and Android. See also Objective-C[https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack-objectivec] and Java[https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack-java] implementations
* Design a portable protocol to communicate with embedded devices
  * Check also Fluentd[http://fluentd.org/] which is a log collector which uses msgpack for the log format (they say it uses JSON but actually it's msgpack, which is compatible with JSON)
* Exchange objects between software components written in different languages
  * You'll need a flexible but efficient format so that components exchange objects while keeping compatibility

= Portability

MessagePack for Ruby should run on x86, ARM, PowerPC, SPARC and other CPU architectures.

And it works with MRI (CRuby) and Rubinius.
Patches to improve portability is highly welcomed.


= Serializing objects

Use *MessagePack.pack* or *to_msgpack*:

    require 'msgpack'
    msg = MessagePack.pack(obj)  # or
    msg = obj.to_msgpack

== Streaming serialization

Packer provides advanced API to serialize objects in streaming style:

    # serialize a 2-element array [e1, e2]
    pk = MessagePack::Packer.new(io)
    pk.write_array_header(2).write(e1).write(e2).flush

See {API reference}[http://ruby.msgpack.org/MessagePack/Packer.html] for details.

= Deserializing objects

Use *MessagePack.unpack*:

    require 'msgpack'
    obj = MessagePack.unpack(msg)

== Streaming deserialization

Unpacker provides advanced API to deserialize objects in streaming style:

    # deserialize objects from an IO
    u = MessagePack::Unpacker.new(io)
    u.each do |obj|
      # ...
    end

or event-driven style which works well with EventMachine:

    # event-driven deserialization
    def on_read(data)
      @u ||= MessagePack::Unpacker.new
      @u.feed_each(data) {|obj|
         # ...
      }
    end

See {API reference}[http://ruby.msgpack.org/MessagePack/Unpacker.html] for details.

= Serializing and deserializing symbols

By default, symbols are serialized as strings:

    packed = :symbol.to_msgpack     # => "\xA6symbol"
    MessagePack.unpack(packed)      # => "symbol"

This can be customized by registering an extension type for them:

    MessagePack::DefaultFactory.register_type(0x00, Symbol)

    # symbols now survive round trips
    packed = :symbol.to_msgpack     # => "\xc7\x06\x00symbol"
    MessagePack.unpack(packed)      # => :symbol

The extension type for symbols is configurable like any other extension type.
For example, to customize how symbols are packed you can just redefine
Symbol#to_msgpack_ext. Doing this gives you an option to prevent symbols from
being serialized altogether by throwing an exception:

    class Symbol
        def to_msgpack_ext
            raise "Serialization of symbols prohibited"
        end
    end

    MessagePack::DefaultFactory.register_type(0x00, Symbol)

    [1, :symbol, 'string'].to_msgpack  # => RuntimeError: Serialization of symbols prohibited

= Serializing and deserializing Time instances

There are the timestamp extension type in MessagePack,
but it is not registered by default.

To map Ruby's Time to MessagePack's timestamp for the default factory:

    MessagePack::DefaultFactory.register_type(
      MessagePack::Timestamp::TYPE, # or just -1
      Time,
      packer: MessagePack::Time::Packer,
      unpacker: MessagePack::Time::Unpacker
    )

See {API reference}[http://ruby.msgpack.org/] for details.

= Extension Types

Packer and Unpacker support {Extension types of MessagePack}[https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack/blob/master/spec.md#types-extension-type].

    # register how to serialize custom class at first
    pk = MessagePack::Packer.new(io)
    pk.register_type(0x01, MyClass1, :to_msgpack_ext) # equal to pk.register_type(0x01, MyClass)
    pk.register_type(0x02, MyClass2){|obj| obj.how_to_serialize() } # blocks also available
    
    # almost same API for unpacker
    uk = MessagePack::Unpacker.new()
    uk.register_type(0x01, MyClass1, :from_msgpack_ext)
    uk.register_type(0x02){|data| MyClass2.create_from_serialized_data(data) }

MessagePack::Factory is to create packer and unpacker which have same extension types.

    factory = MessagePack::Factory.new
    factory.register_type(0x01, MyClass1) # same with next line
    factory.register_type(0x01, MyClass1, packer: :to_msgpack_ext, unpacker: :from_msgpack_ext)
    pk = factory.packer(options_for_packer)
    uk = factory.unpacker(options_for_unpacker)

For *MessagePack.pack* and *MessagePack.unpack*, default packer/unpacker refer *MessagePack::DefaultFactory*. Call *MessagePack::DefaultFactory.register_type* to enable types process globally.

    MessagePack::DefaultFactory.register_type(0x03, MyClass3)
    MessagePack.unpack(data_with_ext_typeid_03) #=> MyClass3 instance

= Buffer API

MessagePack for Ruby provides a buffer API so that you can read or write data by hand, not via Packer or Unpacker API.

This {MessagePack::Buffer}[http://ruby.msgpack.org/MessagePack/Buffer.html] is backed with a fixed-length shared memory pool which is very fast for small data (<= 4KB),
and has zero-copy capability which significantly affects performance to handle large binary data.

= How to build and run tests

Before building msgpack, you need to install bundler and dependencies.

    gem install bundler
    bundle install

Then, you can run the tasks as follows:

* Build

    bundle exec rake build

* Run tests

    bundle exec rake spec

* Generating docs

    bundle exec rake doc

== How to build -java rubygems

To build -java gems for JRuby, run:

    rake build:java

If this directory has Gemfile.lock (generated with MRI), remove it beforehand.

== How to build -mingw32 rubygems

MessagePack mingw32/64 rubygems build process uses {rake-compiler-dock}[https://github.com/rake-compiler/rake-compiler-dock]. Run:

    rake build:windows

Once this step successes, target gems exist in pkg/msgpack-*-{x86,x64}-mingw32.gem.

== Updating documents

Online documents (http://ruby.msgpack.org) is generated from gh-pages branch.
Following commands update documents in gh-pages branch:

    bundle exec rake doc
    git checkout gh-pages
    cp doc/* ./ -a

= Copyright

Author::    Sadayuki Furuhashi <frsyuki@gmail.com>
Copyright:: Copyright (c) 2008-2015 Sadayuki Furuhashi
License::   Apache License, Version 2.0

