Bolty - binary javascript object serializer

I want to introduce Bolty, a small piece of code that can serialize JS
objects into binary buffers and back again into an object. It consumes
a lot less space than JSON and can also handle objects that contains
buffers and other types of data. It's a lot like Protocol Buffers but
uses pure JS and its very extensible.

https://github.com/alanhoff/node-bolty



This sounds like an interesting project. Did you make bindings for other scripting languages - mainly PHP - too? I am just looking for a smaller soltuion than JSON… o.o



I thought we had BSON for this purpose already.



@Alex, Bolty generates a much smaller output compared to BSON, but is
a bit less flexible.

@Kevin no bindings yet, sry. It shouldn't be complicated to implement
one for PHP.



Thank you for sharing Alan!
A very simple API.



I dont like the idea to compile a module just to use two functions, so I am looking for a flat - scripted - alternative instead.



Yeah, BSON is optimized for traversal speed mostly. If we're talking about size, it'd make sense to look for CBOR or MessagePack.

(I see that Bolty generates even smaller output because if the schema, but I wouldn't consider it an advantage)

My point is: it's better to implement one of the existing standards than invent a new one imho.



I thought we had gzip