msgpack-delphi

From http://www.msgpack.org/

MessagePack is an efficient binary serialization format. It lets you exchange data among multiple languages like JSON but it's faster and smaller. For example, small integers (like flags or error code) are encoded into a single byte, and typical short strings only require an extra byte in addition to the strings themselves.

If you ever wished to use JSON for convenience (storing an image with metadata) but could not for technical reasons (encoding, size, speed...), MessagePack is a perfect replacement.

This Delphi-FPC implementation aims to be simple but still have good speed.

• single unit
• ~1350 lines
• simple streaming suport (any TStream)
• no external dependencies
• load/parse ~2 times faster than equivalent JSON with superobject

It also uses Interfaced objects to provide a simple Garbage Collector mechanism, so no need to call .Free or handle cloning manually in your program.

Specification conformance

It supports the latest msgpack 2.0 specification except ext type (Extension type).

Map Keys

MsgPack has no limitations for the type of map keys, they can be anything including other maps. The unit has two configurations defined with the STRINGMAPKEYS conditional directive at the top of the unit.

• STRINGMAPKEYS Enabled: Maps allows only bytes of string keys. An exception is raised if something else is found as a key. Map operations are usually 2x faster.
• STRINGMAPKEYS Disabled: Map keys can be any type.

Works with

• Delphi 7 (tested)
• Delphi 2009-XE (not tested)
• Delphi XE2 (tested)
• Delphi XE3-5 (not tested)
• FPC (tested)

Included

• Benchmark against Json (using superobject)
• Very simple test program.

To-Do

Documentation

Comprehensive tests