Usamin

A fast JSON serializer / deserializer for Ruby with RapidJSON.

The name of "Usamin" is derived from Nana Abe.

I congratulate her on her election as the 7th Cinderella Girl.

Installation

Install RapidJSON beforehand. Only header files are necessary, and no need to build.

Next, add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'usamin'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install usamin

The directory of RapidJSON can be explicitly specified with --with-rapidjson-dir option.

$ gem install usamin -- --with-rapidjson-dir=/usr/local/opt/rapidjson

Usage

Loading library

require 'usamin'

Parsing

json = <<JSON
[
    {
        "name": "miku maekawa",
        "age": 15,
        "height": 152,
        "weight": 45,
        "body_size": [85, 55, 81],
        "birthday": "2/22",
        "cv": "natsumi takamori"
    },
    {
        "name": "nana abe",
        "age": 17,
        "height": 146,
        "weight": 40,
        "body_size": [84, 57, 84],
        "birthday": "5/15",
        "cv": "marie miyake"
    }
]
JSON

Usamin.parse(json)

Lazy loading

data = Usamin.load(json)

Here, data is not a Array, but this can be handled like an Array.

data.size
#=> 2

data.map{|e| e['name']}
#=> ["miku maekawa", "nana abe"]

Objects also can be handled like Hash objects.

data.first['name']
#=> "miku maekawa"

data.first.keys
#=> ["name", "age", "height", "weight", "body_size", "birthday", "cv"]

The methods eval and eval_r convert these data structures into Ruby data structures. _r means recursiveness.

data.eval
#=> [#<Usamin::Hash>, #<Usamin::Hash>]

data.first.eval_r
#=> {"name"=>"miku maekawa", "age"=>15, "height"=>152, "weight"=>45, "body_size"=>[85, 55, 81], "birthday"=>"2/22", "cv"=>"natsumi takamori"}

# same as Usamin.parse(json)
Usamin.load(json).eval_r

Notes about lazy loading data

  • Frozen. Modification is not allowed.
  • A key list of Hash is based on not hash tables but arrays. An index access to hash costs O(n).

Generating

data = [{"name" => "miku maekawa", "age" => 15,
    "height" => 152, "weight" => 45,
    "body_size" => [85, 55, 81], "birthday" => "2/22",
    "cv" => "natsumi takamori"}, {
    "name" => "nana abe", "age" => 17,
    "height" => 146, "weight" => 40,
    "body_size" => [84, 57, 84], "birthday" => "5/15",
    "cv" => "marie miyake"}]

Usamin.generate(data)

# pretty generation is also supported
Usamin.pretty_generate(data)

Of course, UsaminValue also can be serialized.

data = Usamin.load(json)
Usamin.generate(data[1])

Fast parsing

Usamin uses kParseFullPrecisionFlag by default, but this option makes parsing a little slow.

You can use :fast option to avoid this.

# default
Usamin.parse('77.777700000000795')
#=> 77.77770000000079

# fast but not precise
Usamin.parse('77.777700000000795', fast: true)
#=> 77.7777000000008

Error handling

str = '{"this is bad example"'
Usamin.parse(str)
# Usamin::ParserError: Missing a colon after a name of object member. Offset: 22

Overwrite JSON module

You can overwrite JSON module methods by loading usamin/overwrite.

require 'usamin/overwrite'

# These methods are based on Usamin
JSON.parse(json)
JSON.generate(data)
JSON.pretty_generate(data)

The overwritten methods are as follows:

  • JSON.parse -> Usamin.parse
  • JSON.load / JSON.restore -> Usamin.parse
  • JSON.generate -> Usamin.generate / Usamin.pretty_generate
  • JSON.pretty_generate -> Usamin.pretty_generate

You can automatically switch packages by following technique.

begin
    require 'usamin'
    require 'usamin/overwrite'
rescue LoadError
    require 'json'
end

Documentation

See: http://www.rubydoc.info/gems/usamin/

Benchmarks

Based on nativejson-benchmark.

Roundtrips

Usamin passes all roundtrips, and the results are same as official JSON package.

Reliability of parsed data

Usamin and JSON load the same data from 3 big json data in nativejson-benchmark.

Performance

The values show the elapsed time for operating 20 times.

Parsing

nativejson-benchmark/data/canada.json
json                     0.755101   0.004066   0.759167 (  0.762169)
oj                       1.873840   0.040992   1.914832 (  1.919647)
usamin                   0.582432   0.011584   0.594016 (  0.596472)
usamin (fast)            0.271741   0.004775   0.276516 (  0.278315)
usamin (load)            0.458602   0.009857   0.468459 (  0.471155)
usamin (load / fast)     0.183260   0.019372   0.202632 (  0.204489)

nativejson-benchmark/data/citm_catalog.json
json                     0.477735   0.006309   0.484044 (  0.487179)
oj                       0.374920   0.005170   0.380090 (  0.384444)
usamin                   0.363176   0.004812   0.367988 (  0.370558)
usamin (fast)            0.352986   0.004893   0.357879 (  0.360197)
usamin (load)            0.123704   0.006770   0.130474 (  0.133101)
usamin (load / fast)     0.106889   0.008363   0.115252 (  0.117514)

nativejson-benchmark/data/twitter.json
json                     0.227502   0.001665   0.229167 (  0.233347)
oj                       0.148312   0.000936   0.149248 (  0.151006)
usamin                   0.178398   0.003571   0.181969 (  0.183786)
usamin (fast)            0.170842   0.000973   0.171815 (  0.173604)
usamin (load)            0.064007   0.005254   0.069261 (  0.071036)
usamin (load / fast)     0.068870   0.006189   0.075059 (  0.077111)

Generating

nativejson-benchmark/data/canada.json
json                     1.994007   0.026034   2.020041 (  2.025446)
oj                       2.087961   0.029023   2.116984 (  2.123429)
usamin                   0.274208   0.022461   0.296669 (  0.298859)
usamin (load)            0.273885   0.031334   0.305219 (  0.310155)

nativejson-benchmark/data/citm_catalog.json
json                     0.237936   0.009822   0.247758 (  0.252693)
oj                       0.073700   0.008512   0.082212 (  0.084021)
usamin                   0.064633   0.010208   0.074841 (  0.077269)
usamin (load)            0.041944   0.010903   0.052847 (  0.055097)

nativejson-benchmark/data/twitter.json
json                     0.165987   0.005908   0.171895 (  0.176533)
oj                       0.042210   0.005486   0.047696 (  0.049477)
usamin                   0.039056   0.009091   0.048147 (  0.050299)
usamin (load)            0.029979   0.009041   0.039020 (  0.041219)

Pretty Generating

nativejson-benchmark/data/canada.json
json                     2.196968   0.067552   2.264520 (  2.270109)
oj                       1.549510   0.019002   1.568512 (  1.573885)
usamin                   0.373060   0.071227   0.444287 (  0.446266)
usamin (load)            0.363781   0.067480   0.431261 (  0.433839)

nativejson-benchmark/data/citm_catalog.json
json                     0.285428   0.022632   0.308060 (  0.312022)
oj                       0.064475   0.008716   0.073191 (  0.075125)
usamin                   0.088890   0.019419   0.108309 (  0.110423)
usamin (load)            0.058728   0.018471   0.077199 (  0.079330)

nativejson-benchmark/data/twitter.json
json                     0.170966   0.010184   0.181150 (  0.186188)
oj                       0.038465   0.007323   0.045788 (  0.047589)
usamin                   0.046873   0.011960   0.058833 (  0.060903)
usamin (load)            0.038984   0.010469   0.049453 (  0.049652)

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/Ishotihadus/usamin.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License at the request of RapidJSON.