oj-2.12.8 Documentation

# Oj gem¶ ↑

A fast JSON parser and Object marshaller as a Ruby gem.

## Installation¶ ↑

    gem install oj

or in Bundler: `gem 'oj'`

## Documentation¶ ↑

Documentation: www.ohler.com/oj, rubydoc.info/gems/oj

## Source¶ ↑

GitHub repo: github.com/ohler55/oj

RubyGems repo: rubygems.org/gems/oj

Follow @peterohler on Twitter for announcements and news about the Oj gem.

## Build Status¶ ↑

## Release 2.12.8¶ ↑

- mimic_JSON now supports the global/kernel JSON function that will either parse a string argument or dump an array or object argument.

Older release notes.

## Description¶ ↑

Optimized JSON (Oj), as the name implies, was written to provide speed optimized JSON handling. It was designed as a faster alternative to Yajl and other common Ruby JSON parsers. So far it has achieved that, and is about 2 times faster than any other Ruby JSON parser, and 3 or more times faster at serializing JSON.

Oj has several `dump` or serialization modes which control how Ruby `Object`s are converted to JSON. These modes are set with the `:mode` option in either the default options or as one of the options to the `dump` method. The default mode is the `:object` mode.

- `:strict` mode will only allow the 7 basic JSON types to be serialized. Any other `Object` will raise an `Exception`.

- `:null` mode replaces any `Object` that is not one of the JSON types with a JSON `null`.

- `:object` mode will dump any `Object` as a JSON `Object` with keys that match the Ruby `Object`'s variable names without the '@' prefix character. This is the highest performance mode.

- `:compat` mode attempts to be compatible with other systems. It will serialize any `Object`, but will check to see if the `Object` implements an `to_hash` or `to_json` method. If either exists, that method is used for serializing the `Object`. Since `as_json` is more flexible and produces more consistent output, it is preferred over the `to_json` method. If neither the `to_json` or `to_hash` methods exists, then the Oj internal `Object` variable encoding is used.

To change default serialization mode: `ruby Oj.default_options = {:mode => :compat }`

## Compatibility¶ ↑

### Ruby¶ ↑

Oj is compatible with Ruby 1.8.7, 1.9.2, 1.9.3, 2.0.0, 2.1, 2.2 and RBX. Support for JRuby has been removed as JRuby no longer supports C extensions and there are bugs in the older versions that are not being fixed.

### Rails¶ ↑

Although up until 4.1 Rails uses multi_json, an issue in Rails causes ActiveSupport to fail to make use Oj for JSON handling. There is a gem to patch this for Rails 3.2 and 4.0. As of the Oj 2.6.0 release the default behavior is to not use the `to_json()` method unless the `:use_to_json` option is set. This provides another work around to the rails older and newer behavior.

The latest ActiveRecord is able to work with Oj by simply using the line: `serialize :my_attr, Oj`

In version Rails 4.1, multi_json has been removed, and this patch is unnecessary and will no longer work. Instead, use the `oj_mimic_json` gem along with `oj` in your `Gemfile` to have Oj mimic the JSON gem and be used in its place by `ActiveSupport` JSON handling: `gem 'oj' gem 'oj_mimic_json'`

## Proper Use¶ ↑

Two settings in Oj are useful for parsing but do expose a vulnerability if used from an untrusted source. Symbolized keys can cause memory to be filled since Ruby does not garbage collect Symbols. The same is true for auto defining classes; memory will also be exhausted if too many classes are automatically defined. Auto defining is a useful feature during development and from trusted sources but it allows too many classes to be created in the object load mode and auto defined is used with an untrusted source. The `Oj.strict_load()` method sets and uses the most strict and safest options. It should be used by developers who find it difficult to understand the options available in Oj.

The options in Oj are designed to provide flexibility to the developer. This flexibility allows Objects to be serialized and deserialized. No methods are ever called on these created Objects but that does not stop the developer from calling methods on them. As in any system, check your inputs before working with them. Taking an arbitrary `String` from a user and evaluating it is never a good idea from an unsecure source. The same is true for `Object` attributes as they are not more than `String`s. Always check inputs from untrusted sources.

## Simple JSON Writing and Parsing Example¶ ↑

    require 'oj'

    h = { 'one' => 1, 'array' => [ true, false ] }
    json = Oj.dump(h)

    # json =
    # {
    #   "one":1,
    #   "array":[
    #     true,
    #     false
    #   ]
    # }

    h2 = Oj.load(json)
    puts "Same? #{h == h2}"
    # true

## Alternative JSON Processing APIs¶ ↑

Oj offers a few alternative APIs for processing JSON. The fastest one is the `Oj::Doc` API. The `Oj::Doc` API takes a completely different approach by opening a JSON document and providing calls to navigate around the JSON while it is open. With this approach, JSON access can be well over 20 times faster than conventional JSON parsing.

The `Oj::Saj` and `Oj::ScHandler` APIs are callback parsers that walk the JSON document depth first and makes callbacks for each element. Both callback parser are useful when only portions of the JSON are of interest. Performance up to 20 times faster than conventional JSON is possible. The API is simple to use but does require a different approach than the conventional parse followed by access approach used by conventional JSON parsing.

# Links¶ ↑

## Performance Comparisons¶ ↑

Oj Strict Mode Performance compares Oj strict mode parser performance to other JSON parsers.

Oj Compat Mode Performance compares Oj compat mode parser performance to other JSON parsers.

Oj Object Mode Performance compares Oj object mode parser performance to other marshallers.

Oj Callback Performance compares Oj callback parser performance to other JSON parsers.

## Links of Interest¶ ↑

Fast XML parser and marshaller on RubyGems: rubygems.org/gems/ox

Fast XML parser and marshaller on GitHub: github.com/ohler55/ox

Oj Object Encoding Format describes the OJ Object JSON encoding format.

Need for Speed for an overview of how Oj::Doc was designed.

OjC, a C JSON parser: www.ohler.com/ojc also at github.com/ohler55/ojc