NAME Data::Serializer:: - Modules that serialize data structures SYNOPSIS use Data::Serializer; $obj = Data::Serializer->new(); $obj = Data::Serializer->new( serializer => 'Storable', digester => 'MD5', cipher => 'DES', secret => 'my secret', compress => 1, ); $serialized = $obj->serialize({a => [1,2,3],b => 5}); $deserialized = $obj->deserialize($serialized); print "$deserialized->{b}\n"; DESCRIPTION Provides a unified interface to the various serializing modules currently available. Adds the functionality of both compression and encryption. EXAMPLES Please see Data::Serializer::Cookbook(3) METHODS new - constructor $obj = Data::Serializer->new(); $obj = Data::Serializer->new( serializer => 'Data::Dumper', digester => 'SHA-256', cipher => 'Blowfish', secret => undef, portable => '1', compress => '0', serializer_token => '1', options => {}, ); new is the constructor object for Data::Serializer objects. * The default *serializer* is "Data::Dumper" * The default *digester* is "SHA-256" * The default *cipher* is "Blowfish" * The default *secret* is "undef" * The default *portable* is 1 * The default *encoding* is "hex" * The default *compress* is 0 * The default *compressor* is "Compress::Zlib" * The default *serializer_token* is 1 * The default *options* is "{}" (pass nothing on to serializer) serialize - serialize reference $serialized = $obj->serialize({a => [1,2,3],b => 5}); Serializes the reference specified. Will compress if compress is a true value. Will encrypt if secret is defined. deserialize - deserialize reference $deserialized = $obj->deserialize($serialized); Reverses the process of serialization and returns a copy of the original serialized reference. freeze - synonym for serialize $serialized = $obj->freeze({a => [1,2,3],b => 5}); thaw - synonym for deserialize $deserialized = $obj->thaw($serialized); raw_serialize - serialize reference in raw form $serialized = $obj->raw_serialize({a => [1,2,3],b => 5}); This is a straight pass through to the underlying serializer, nothing else is done. (no encoding, encryption, compression, etc) raw_deserialize - deserialize reference in raw form $deserialized = $obj->raw_deserialize($serialized); This is a straight pass through to the underlying serializer, nothing else is done. (no encoding, encryption, compression, etc) secret - specify secret for use with encryption $obj->secret('mysecret'); Changes setting of secret for the Data::Serializer object. Can also be set in the constructor. If specified than the object will utilize encryption. portable - encodes/decodes serialized data Uses encoding method to ascii armor serialized data Aids in the portability of serialized data. compress - compression of data Compresses serialized data. Default is not to use it. Will compress if set to a true value $obj->compress(1); raw - all calls to serializer and deserializer will automatically use raw mode Setting this to a true value will force serializer and deserializer to work in raw mode (see raw_serializer and raw_deserializer). The default is for this to be off. serializer - change the serializer Currently have 8 supported serializers: Storable, FreezeThaw, Data::Denter, Config::General, YAML, PHP::Serialization, XML::Dumper, and Data::Dumper. Default is to use Data::Dumper. Each serializer has its own caveat's about usage especially when dealing with cyclical data structures or CODE references. Please see the appropriate documentation in those modules for further information. cipher - change the cipher method Utilizes Crypt::CBC and can support any cipher method that it supports. digester - change digesting method Uses Digest so can support any digesting method that it supports. Digesting function is used internally by the encryption routine as part of data verification. compressor - changes compresing module Currently Compress::Zlib and Compress::PPMd are the only options encoding - change encoding method Encodes data structure in ascii friendly manner. Currently the only valid options are hex, or b64. The b64 option uses Base64 encoding provided by MIME::Base64, but strips out newlines. serializer_token - add usage hint to data Data::Serializer prepends a token that identifies what was used to process its data. This is used internally to allow runtime determination of how to extract Serialized data. Disabling this feature is not recommended. options - pass options through to underlying serializer Currently is only supported by Config::General, and XML::Dumper. my $obj = Data::Serializer->new(serializer => 'Config::General', options => { -LowerCaseNames => 1, -UseApacheInclude => 1, -MergeDuplicateBlocks => 1, -AutoTrue => 1, -InterPolateVars => 1 }, ) or die "$!\n"; or my $obj = Data::Serializer->new(serializer => 'XML::Dumper', options => { dtd => 1, } ) or die "$!\n"; store - serialize data and write it to a file (or file handle) $obj->store({a => [1,2,3],b => 5},$file, [$mode, $perm]); or $obj->store({a => [1,2,3],b => 5},$fh); Serializes the reference specified using the serialize method and writes it out to the specified file or filehandle. If a file path is specified you may specify an optional mode and permission as the next two arguments. See IO::File for examples. Trips an exception if it is unable to write to the specified file. retrieve - read data from file (or file handle) and return it after deserialization my $ref = $obj->retrieve($file); or my $ref = $obj->retrieve($fh); Reads first line of supplied file or filehandle and returns it deserialized. TRANSIENCE Data::Serializer is aware of Tie::Transient. What this means is that you use Tie::Transient as normal, and when your object is serialized, the transient components will be automatically removed for you. Tie::Transient is not on CPAN, and doesn't look like it ever will be. With the advent of attributes from 5.8 this feature should probably be deprecated anyway. If you would like to use Tie::Transient you can download it directly from Brian's site here: http://www.maz.org/perl/Tie-Transient-0.05.tar.gz With perl attributes in 5.8, this should probably be deprecated. AUTHOR Neil Neely . Feature requests are certainly welcome. http://neil-neely.blogspot.com/ BUGS Please report all bugs here: http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=Data-Serializer TODO Phase out support for Tie::Transient Extend the persistent framework. Perhaps Persistent::Base(3) framework would be useful to explore further. Volunteers for putting this together would be welcome. COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE Copyright (c) 2001-2008 Neil Neely. All rights reserved. This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.2 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available. See http://www.perl.com/language/misc/Artistic.html ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Gurusamy Sarathy and Raphael Manfredi for writing MLDBM, the module which inspired the creation of Data::Serializer. And thanks to all of you who have provided the feedback that has improved this module over the years. In particular I'd like to thank Florian Helmberger, for the numerous suggestions and bug fixes. DEDICATION This module is dedicated to my beautiful wife Erica. SEE ALSO Data::Dumper(3) Data::Denter(3) Data::Taxi(3) Storable(3) FreezeThaw(3) Config::General(3) YAML(3) YAML::Syck(3) PHP::Serialization(3) XML::Dumper(3) JSON(3) JSON::Syck(3) Compress::Zlib(3) Compress::PPMd(3) Digest(3) Digest::SHA(3) Crypt(3) MIME::Base64(3) IO::File(3) Tie::Transient(3)