25 KiB
GoJay
GoJay is a performant JSON encoder/decoder for Golang (currently the most performant, see benchmarks).
It has a simple API and doesn’t use reflection. It relies on small interfaces to decode/encode structures and slices.
Gojay also comes with powerful stream decoding features and an even faster Unsafe API.
There is also a code generation tool to make usage easier and faster.
Why another JSON parser?
I looked at other fast decoder/encoder and realised it was mostly hardly readable static code generation or a lot of reflection, poor streaming features, and not so fast in the end.
Also, I wanted to build a decoder that could consume an io.Reader of line or comma delimited JSON, in a JIT way. To consume a flow of JSON objects from a TCP connection for example or from a standard output. Same way I wanted to build an encoder that could encode a flow of data to a io.Writer.
This is how GoJay aims to be a very fast, JIT stream parser with 0 reflection, low allocation with a friendly API.
Get started
go get github.com/francoispqt/gojay
Decoding
Decoding is done through two different API similar to standard
encoding/json
: * Unmarshal *
Decode
Example of basic stucture decoding with Unmarshal:
import "github.com/francoispqt/gojay"
type user struct {
int
id string
name string
email }
// implement gojay.UnmarshalerJSONObject
func (u *user) UnmarshalJSONObject(dec *gojay.Decoder, key string) error {
switch key {
case "id":
return dec.Int(&u.id)
case "name":
return dec.String(&u.name)
case "email":
return dec.String(&u.email)
}
return nil
}
func (u *user) NKeys() int {
return 3
}
func main() {
:= &user{}
u := []byte(`{"id":1,"name":"gojay","email":"gojay@email.com"}`)
d := gojay.UnmarshalJSONObject(d, u)
err if err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
}
with Decode:
func main() {
:= &user{}
u := gojay.NewDecoder(bytes.NewReader([]byte(`{"id":1,"name":"gojay","email":"gojay@email.com"}`)))
dec := dec.DecodeObject(d, u)
err if err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
}
Unmarshal API
Unmarshal API decodes a []byte
to a given pointer with a
single function.
Behind the doors, Unmarshal API borrows a *gojay.Decoder
resets its settings and decodes the data to the given pointer and
releases the *gojay.Decoder
to the pool when it finishes,
whether it encounters an error or not.
If it cannot find the right Decoding strategy for the type of the
given pointer, it returns an InvalidUnmarshalError
. You can
test the error returned by doing
if ok := err.(InvalidUnmarshalError); ok {}
.
Unmarshal API comes with three functions: * Unmarshal
func Unmarshal(data []byte, v interface{}) error
- UnmarshalJSONObject
func UnmarshalJSONObject(data []byte, v gojay.UnmarshalerJSONObject) error
- UnmarshalJSONArray
func UnmarshalJSONArray(data []byte, v gojay.UnmarshalerJSONArray) error
Decode API
Decode API decodes a []byte
to a given pointer by
creating or borrowing a *gojay.Decoder
with an
io.Reader
and calling Decode
methods.
__Getting a *gojay.Decoder or Borrowing__
You can either get a fresh *gojay.Decoder
calling
dec := gojay.NewDecoder(io.Reader)
or borrow one from the
pool by calling dec := gojay.BorrowDecoder(io.Reader)
.
After using a decoder, you can release it by calling
dec.Release()
. Beware, if you reuse the decoder after
releasing it, it will panic with an error of type
InvalidUsagePooledDecoderError
. If you want to fully
benefit from the pooling, you must release your decoders after
using.
Example getting a fresh an releasing:
:= ""
str := gojay.NewDecoder(strings.NewReader(`"test"`))
dec defer dec.Release()
if err := dec.Decode(&str); err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
Example borrowing a decoder and releasing:
:= ""
str := gojay.BorrowDecoder(strings.NewReader(`"test"`))
dec defer dec.Release()
if err := dec.Decode(&str); err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
*gojay.Decoder
has multiple methods to decode to
specific types: * Decode
func (dec *gojay.Decoder) Decode(v interface{}) error
- DecodeObject
func (dec *gojay.Decoder) DecodeObject(v gojay.UnmarshalerJSONObject) error
- DecodeArray
func (dec *gojay.Decoder) DecodeArray(v gojay.UnmarshalerJSONArray) error
- DecodeInt
func (dec *gojay.Decoder) DecodeInt(v *int) error
- DecodeBool
func (dec *gojay.Decoder) DecodeBool(v *bool) error
- DecodeString
func (dec *gojay.Decoder) DecodeString(v *string) error
All DecodeXxx methods are used to decode top level JSON values. If you are decoding keys or items of a JSON object or array, don’t use the Decode methods.
Example:
:= strings.NewReader(`"John Doe"`)
reader := NewDecoder(reader)
dec
var str string
:= dec.DecodeString(&str)
err if err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
.Println(str) // John Doe fmt
Structs and Maps
UnmarshalerJSONObject Interface
To unmarshal a JSON object to a structure, the structure must
implement the UnmarshalerJSONObject
interface:
type UnmarshalerJSONObject interface {
(*gojay.Decoder, string) error
UnmarshalJSONObject() int
NKeys}
UnmarshalJSONObject
method takes two arguments, the
first one is a pointer to the Decoder (*gojay.Decoder) and the second
one is the string value of the current key being parsed. If the JSON
data is not an object, the UnmarshalJSONObject method will never be
called.
NKeys
method must return the number of keys to Unmarshal
in the JSON object or 0. If zero is returned, all keys will be
parsed.
Example of implementation for a struct:
type user struct {
int
id string
name string
email }
// implement UnmarshalerJSONObject
func (u *user) UnmarshalJSONObject(dec *gojay.Decoder, key string) error {
switch key {
case "id":
return dec.Int(&u.id)
case "name":
return dec.String(&u.name)
case "email":
return dec.String(&u.email)
}
return nil
}
func (u *user) NKeys() int {
return 3
}
Example of implementation for a map[string]string
:
// define our custom map type implementing UnmarshalerJSONObject
type message map[string]string
// Implementing Unmarshaler
func (m message) UnmarshalJSONObject(dec *gojay.Decoder, k string) error {
:= ""
str := dec.String(&str)
err if err != nil {
return err
}
[k] = str
mreturn nil
}
// we return 0, it tells the Decoder to decode all keys
func (m message) NKeys() int {
return 0
}
Arrays, Slices and Channels
To unmarshal a JSON object to a slice an array or a channel, it must implement the UnmarshalerJSONArray interface:
type UnmarshalerJSONArray interface {
(*gojay.Decoder) error
UnmarshalJSONArray}
UnmarshalJSONArray method takes one argument, a pointer to the Decoder (*gojay.Decoder). If the JSON data is not an array, the Unmarshal method will never be called.
Example of implementation with a slice:
type testSlice []string
// implement UnmarshalerJSONArray
func (t *testSlice) UnmarshalJSONArray(dec *gojay.Decoder) error {
:= ""
str if err := dec.String(&str); err != nil {
return err
}
*t = append(*t, str)
return nil
}
func main() {
:= gojay.BorrowDecoder(strings.NewReader(`["Tom", "Jim"]`))
dec var slice testSlice
:= dec.DecodeArray(&slice)
err if err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
.Println(slice) // [Tom Jim]
fmt.Release()
dec}
Example of implementation with a channel:
type testChannel chan string
// implement UnmarshalerJSONArray
func (c testChannel) UnmarshalJSONArray(dec *gojay.Decoder) error {
:= ""
str if err := dec.String(&str); err != nil {
return err
}
<- str
c return nil
}
func main() {
:= gojay.BorrowDecoder(strings.NewReader(`["Tom", "Jim"]`))
dec := make(testChannel, 2)
c := dec.DecodeArray(c)
err if err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
for i := 0; i < 2; i++ {
.Println(<-c)
fmt}
close(c)
.Release()
dec}
Example of implementation with an array:
type testArray [3]string
// implement UnmarshalerJSONArray
func (a *testArray) UnmarshalJSONArray(dec *Decoder) error {
var str string
if err := dec.String(&str); err != nil {
return err
}
[dec.Index()] = str
areturn nil
}
func main() {
:= gojay.BorrowDecoder(strings.NewReader(`["Tom", "Jim", "Bob"]`))
dec var a testArray
:= dec.DecodeArray(&a)
err .Println(a) // [Tom Jim Bob]
fmt.Release()
dec}
Other types
To decode other types (string, int, int32, int64, uint32, uint64, float, booleans), you don’t need to implement any interface.
Example of encoding strings:
func main() {
:= []byte(`"Jay"`)
json var v string
:= gojay.Unmarshal(json, &v)
err if err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
.Println(v) // Jay
fmt}
Decode values methods
When decoding a JSON object of a JSON array using
UnmarshalerJSONObject
or UnmarshalerJSONArray
interface, the gojay.Decoder
provides dozens of methods to
Decode multiple types.
Non exhaustive list of methods available (to see all methods, check the godoc):
.Int
dec.Int8
dec.Int16
dec.Int32
dec.Int64
dec.Uint8
dec.Uint16
dec.Uint32
dec.Uint64
dec.String
dec.Time
dec.Bool
dec.SQLNullString
dec.SQLNullInt64 dec
Encoding
Encoding is done through two different API similar to standard
encoding/json
: * Marshal * Encode
Example of basic structure encoding with Marshal:
import "github.com/francoispqt/gojay"
type user struct {
int
id string
name string
email }
// implement MarshalerJSONObject
func (u *user) MarshalJSONObject(enc *gojay.Encoder) {
.IntKey("id", u.id)
enc.StringKey("name", u.name)
enc.StringKey("email", u.email)
enc}
func (u *user) IsNil() bool {
return u == nil
}
func main() {
:= &user{1, "gojay", "gojay@email.com"}
u , err := gojay.MarshalJSONObject(u)
bif err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
.Println(string(b)) // {"id":1,"name":"gojay","email":"gojay@email.com"}
fmt}
with Encode:
func main() {
:= &user{1, "gojay", "gojay@email.com"}
u := strings.Builder{}
b := gojay.NewEncoder(&b)
enc if err := enc.Encode(u); err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
.Println(b.String()) // {"id":1,"name":"gojay","email":"gojay@email.com"}
fmt}
Marshal API
Marshal API encodes a value to a JSON []byte
with a
single function.
Behind the doors, Marshal API borrows a *gojay.Encoder
resets its settings and encodes the data to an internal byte buffer and
releases the *gojay.Encoder
to the pool when it finishes,
whether it encounters an error or not.
If it cannot find the right Encoding strategy for the type of the
given value, it returns an InvalidMarshalError
. You can
test the error returned by doing
if ok := err.(InvalidMarshalError); ok {}
.
Marshal API comes with three functions: * Marshal
func Marshal(v interface{}) ([]byte, error)
- MarshalJSONObject
func MarshalJSONObject(v gojay.MarshalerJSONObject) ([]byte, error)
- MarshalJSONArray
func MarshalJSONArray(v gojay.MarshalerJSONArray) ([]byte, error)
Encode API
Encode API decodes a value to JSON by creating or borrowing a
*gojay.Encoder
sending it to an io.Writer
and
calling Encode
methods.
__Getting a *gojay.Encoder or Borrowing__
You can either get a fresh *gojay.Encoder
calling
enc := gojay.NewEncoder(io.Writer)
or borrow one from the
pool by calling enc := gojay.BorrowEncoder(io.Writer)
.
After using an encoder, you can release it by calling
enc.Release()
. Beware, if you reuse the encoder after
releasing it, it will panic with an error of type
InvalidUsagePooledEncoderError
. If you want to fully
benefit from the pooling, you must release your encoders after
using.
Example getting a fresh encoder an releasing:
:= "test"
str := strings.Builder{}
b := gojay.NewEncoder(&b)
enc defer enc.Release()
if err := enc.Encode(str); err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
Example borrowing an encoder and releasing:
:= "test"
str := strings.Builder{}
b := gojay.BorrowEncoder(b)
enc defer enc.Release()
if err := enc.Encode(str); err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
*gojay.Encoder
has multiple methods to encoder specific
types to JSON: * Encode
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) Encode(v interface{}) error
- EncodeObject
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) EncodeObject(v gojay.MarshalerJSONObject) error
- EncodeArray
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) EncodeArray(v gojay.MarshalerJSONArray) error
- EncodeInt
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) EncodeInt(n int) error
- EncodeInt64
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) EncodeInt64(n int64) error
- EncodeFloat
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) EncodeFloat(n float64) error
- EncodeBool
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) EncodeBool(v bool) error
- EncodeString
func (enc *gojay.Encoder) EncodeString(s string) error
Structs and Maps
To encode a structure, the structure must implement the MarshalerJSONObject interface:
type MarshalerJSONObject interface {
(enc *gojay.Encoder)
MarshalJSONObject() bool
IsNil}
MarshalJSONObject
method takes one argument, a pointer
to the Encoder (*gojay.Encoder). The method must add all the keys in the
JSON Object by calling Decoder’s methods.
IsNil method returns a boolean indicating if the interface underlying value is nil or not. It is used to safely ensure that the underlying value is not nil without using Reflection.
Example of implementation for a struct:
type user struct {
int
id string
name string
email }
// implement MarshalerJSONObject
func (u *user) MarshalJSONObject(enc *gojay.Encoder) {
.IntKey("id", u.id)
enc.StringKey("name", u.name)
enc.StringKey("email", u.email)
enc}
func (u *user) IsNil() bool {
return u == nil
}
Example of implementation for a map[string]string
:
// define our custom map type implementing MarshalerJSONObject
type message map[string]string
// Implementing Marshaler
func (m message) MarshalJSONObject(enc *gojay.Encoder) {
for k, v := range m {
.StringKey(k, v)
enc}
}
func (m message) IsNil() bool {
return m == nil
}
Arrays and Slices
To encode an array or a slice, the slice/array must implement the MarshalerJSONArray interface:
type MarshalerJSONArray interface {
(enc *gojay.Encoder)
MarshalJSONArray() bool
IsNil}
MarshalJSONArray
method takes one argument, a pointer to
the Encoder (*gojay.Encoder). The method must add all element in the
JSON Array by calling Decoder’s methods.
IsNil
method returns a boolean indicating if the
interface underlying value is nil(empty) or not. It is used to safely
ensure that the underlying value is not nil without using Reflection and
also to in OmitEmpty
feature.
Example of implementation:
type users []*user
// implement MarshalerJSONArray
func (u *users) MarshalJSONArray(enc *gojay.Encoder) {
for _, e := range u {
.Object(e)
enc}
}
func (u *users) IsNil() bool {
return len(u) == 0
}
Other types
To encode other types (string, int, float, booleans), you don’t need to implement any interface.
Example of encoding strings:
func main() {
:= "Jay"
name , err := gojay.Marshal(name)
bif err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
.Println(string(b)) // "Jay"
fmt}
Stream API
Stream Decoding
GoJay ships with a powerful stream decoder.
It allows to read continuously from an io.Reader stream and do JIT decoding writing unmarshalled JSON to a channel to allow async consuming.
When using the Stream API, the Decoder implements context.Context to provide graceful cancellation.
To decode a stream of JSON, you must call
gojay.Stream.DecodeStream
and pass it a
UnmarshalerStream
implementation.
type UnmarshalerStream interface {
(*StreamDecoder) error
UnmarshalStream}
Example of implementation of stream reading from a WebSocket connection:
// implement UnmarshalerStream
type ChannelStream chan *user
func (c ChannelStream) UnmarshalStream(dec *gojay.StreamDecoder) error {
:= &user{}
u if err := dec.Object(u); err != nil {
return err
}
<- u
c return nil
}
func main() {
// get our websocket connection
:= "http://localhost/"
origin := "ws://localhost:12345/ws"
url , err := websocket.Dial(url, "", origin)
wsif err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
// create our channel which will receive our objects
:= ChannelStream(make(chan *user))
streamChan // borrow a decoder
:= gojay.Stream.BorrowDecoder(ws)
dec // start decoding, it will block until a JSON message is decoded from the WebSocket
// or until Done channel is closed
go dec.DecodeStream(streamChan)
for {
select {
case v := <-streamChan:
// Got something from my websocket!
.Println(v)
logcase <-dec.Done():
.Println("finished reading from WebSocket")
log.Exit(0)
os}
}
}
Stream Encoding
GoJay ships with a powerful stream encoder part of the Stream API.
It allows to write continuously to an io.Writer and do JIT encoding of data fed to a channel to allow async consuming. You can set multiple consumers on the channel to be as performant as possible. Consumers are non blocking and are scheduled individually in their own go routine.
When using the Stream API, the Encoder implements context.Context to provide graceful cancellation.
To encode a stream of data, you must call EncodeStream
and pass it a MarshalerStream
implementation.
type MarshalerStream interface {
(enc *gojay.StreamEncoder)
MarshalStream}
Example of implementation of stream writing to a WebSocket:
// Our structure which will be pushed to our stream
type user struct {
int
id string
name string
email }
func (u *user) MarshalJSONObject(enc *gojay.Encoder) {
.IntKey("id", u.id)
enc.StringKey("name", u.name)
enc.StringKey("email", u.email)
enc}
func (u *user) IsNil() bool {
return u == nil
}
// Our MarshalerStream implementation
type StreamChan chan *user
func (s StreamChan) MarshalStream(enc *gojay.StreamEncoder) {
select {
case <-enc.Done():
return
case o := <-s:
.Object(o)
enc}
}
// Our main function
func main() {
// get our websocket connection
:= "http://localhost/"
origin := "ws://localhost:12345/ws"
url , err := websocket.Dial(url, "", origin)
wsif err != nil {
.Fatal(err)
log}
// we borrow an encoder set stdout as the writer,
// set the number of consumer to 10
// and tell the encoder to separate each encoded element
// added to the channel by a new line character
:= gojay.Stream.BorrowEncoder(ws).NConsumer(10).LineDelimited()
enc // instantiate our MarshalerStream
:= StreamChan(make(chan *user))
s // start the stream encoder
// will block its goroutine until enc.Cancel(error) is called
// or until something is written to the channel
go enc.EncodeStream(s)
// write to our MarshalerStream
for i := 0; i < 1000; i++ {
<- &user{i, "username", "user@email.com"}
s }
// Wait
<-enc.Done()
}
Unsafe API
Unsafe API has the same functions than the regular API, it only has
Unmarshal API
for now. It is unsafe because it makes
assumptions on the quality of the given JSON.
If you are not sure if your JSON is valid, don’t use the Unsafe API.
Also, the Unsafe
API does not copy the buffer when using
Unmarshal API, which, in case of string decoding, can lead to data
corruption if a byte buffer is reused. Using the Decode
API
makes Unsafe
API safer as the io.Reader relies on
copy
builtin method and Decoder
will have its
own internal buffer :)
Access the Unsafe
API this way:
.Unsafe.Unmarshal(b, v) gojay
Benchmarks
Benchmarks encode and decode three different data based on size (small, medium, large).
To run benchmark for decoder:
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/francoispqt/gojay/benchmarks/decoder && make bench
To run benchmark for encoder:
cd $GOPATH/src/github.com/francoispqt/gojay/benchmarks/encoder && make bench
Benchmark Results
Decode
Small Payload
ns/op | bytes/op | allocs/op | |
---|---|---|---|
Std Library | 2547 | 496 | 4 |
JsonIter | 2046 | 312 | 12 |
JsonParser | 1408 | 0 | 0 |
EasyJson | 929 | 240 | 2 |
GoJay | 807 | 256 | 2 |
GoJay-unsafe | 712 | 112 | 1 |
Medium Payload
ns/op | bytes/op | allocs/op | |
---|---|---|---|
Std Library | 30148 | 2152 | 496 |
JsonIter | 16309 | 2976 | 80 |
JsonParser | 7793 | 0 | 0 |
EasyJson | 7957 | 232 | 6 |
GoJay | 4984 | 2448 | 8 |
GoJay-unsafe | 4809 | 144 | 7 |
Large Payload
ns/op | bytes/op | allocs/op | |
---|---|---|---|
JsonIter | 210078 | 41712 | 1136 |
EasyJson | 106626 | 160 | 2 |
JsonParser | 66813 | 0 | 0 |
GoJay | 52153 | 31241 | 77 |
GoJay-unsafe | 48277 | 2561 | 76 |
Encode
Small Struct
ns/op | bytes/op | allocs/op | |
---|---|---|---|
Std Library | 1280 | 464 | 3 |
EasyJson | 871 | 944 | 6 |
JsonIter | 866 | 272 | 3 |
GoJay | 543 | 112 | 1 |
GoJay-func | 347 | 0 | 0 |
Medium Struct
ns/op | bytes/op | allocs/op | |
---|---|---|---|
Std Library | 5006 | 1496 | 25 |
JsonIter | 2232 | 1544 | 20 |
EasyJson | 1997 | 1544 | 19 |
GoJay | 1522 | 312 | 14 |
Large Struct
ns/op | bytes/op | allocs/op | |
---|---|---|---|
Std Library | 66441 | 20576 | 332 |
JsonIter | 35247 | 20255 | 328 |
EasyJson | 32053 | 15474 | 327 |
GoJay | 27847 | 9802 | 318 |
Contributing
Contributions are welcome :)
If you encounter issues please report it in Github and/or send an email at francois@parquet.ninja