HiPack (de)serialization library in JavaScript

JavaScript module to work with the HiPack serialization format. The implementation and API are intentionally simple.

Features:

• Reading and writing HiPack formatted messages.
• Works in NodeJS and browsers.
• Small, self contained JavaScript implementation.
• Less than 8kB when minified using UglifyJS2!

Installation

For Node, npm can be used to install the module:

npm install hipack-js

A hipack-js package is also available to be used with Bower:

bower install hipack-js

Usage

(The following examples use Node.)

First, import the module:

var hipack = require("hipack")

To serialize an object containing data, use hipack.dump():

var hiPackText = hipack.dump({
  authors: [
    { name: "Adrián Pérez", email: "aperez@igalia.com" },
    { name: "John Doe", email: "j@doe.org" },
  ]
});
console.info(hiPackText);

The call to console.info() will output the following

authors [
  {
     email: "aperez@igalia.com"
     name: "Adrián Pérez"
  }
  {
    email: "j@doe.org"
    name: "John Doe"
  }
]

Optionally, pass true as a second parameter to hipack.dump() in order to generate a “compact” representation of the data with indentation and whitespace removed, all in a single line.

Parsing is done using the hipack.load() function:

var data = hipack.load(hiPackText);

Browser Usage

The hipack.js script can be directly used with a <script> tag (a minified version is also available):

<!-- This creates a global "hipack" object -->
<script type="text/javascript" src="hipack.js"></script>

If the hipack global name needs to be used for other purposes, a hipack.noConflict() function is provided, which will restore its previous value and return the hipack object:

<script type="text/javascript">
  var myHiPack = hipack.noConflict();
  // Now the API functions are in "myHiPack"
  var data = myHiPack.load( ... );
</script>