Binn (Serialization format)

Performance

The Binn format is designed to be compact and fast on readings. The elements are stored with their sizes to increase the read performance. The strings are null terminated so when read the library returns a pointer to them inside the buffer, avoiding memory allocation and data copying, an operation known as zero-copy.

Data types

Primitive data types:

null

boolean (true and false)

integer (up to 64 bits signed or unsigned)

floating point numbers (IEEE single/double precision)

string

blob (binary data)

User defined

Containers:

list

map (numeric key associative array)

object (text key associative array)

Format

Binn structures consist of a list of elements. Each element has a type that can be followed by the size, count of internal items, and the data itself:

boolean, null: [type] int, float (storage: byte, word, dword or qword): [type][data] string, blob: [type][size][data] list, object, map: [type][size][count][data]

Example encoding

A JSON data such as {"hello":"world"} is serialized in binn with the same size:

Example code

Writing to an object in C:

Reading from that object: