uPickle: a flexible Json Serializer

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uPickle serializer is a lightweight Json library for scala. uPickle is built on top of uJson which are used for easy manipulation of json without the need of converting it to a scala case class. We can even use uJson as standalone too. In this blog, I will focus only on uPickle library.

Note: uPickle does not support Scala 2.10; only 2.11 and 2.12 are supported

uPickle (pronounced micro-pickle) is a lightweight JSON serialization library which is fast than many other json serializers. I will talk more about the comparison of different serializers in my next blog. This blog will cover all the basic stuff about uPickle.

Features

• Simple to use, with nice human-readable JSON output
• Very high Performance; faster than Play-Json, Circe, or Argonaut by a large margin
• Simple & easy to understand JSON Processing API, that should be instantly familiar to anyone whose processed JSON in Python, Ruby, or Javascript
• Flexible and easily customizable
• Zero dependencies; can be included in any project without worrying about conflicts
• ScalaJS support, allowing transfer of structured data between the JVM and Javascript.

If you use uJson you will get basic operations to manipulate JSON:

The uPickle library that uses uJson builds on top of these, exposing similar operations that work on any type T with a provided Reader or Writer:

Now let’s see how it works.

First, we need to add the dependency in build.sbt

libraryDependencies += “com.lihaoyi” %% “upickle” % “0.6.5”

Then add this import in your code:

import upickle.default._

Scala primitive data types:

write(true: Boolean)              returns true (JSON Boolean)
write("Hello Upickle": String)    returns "Hello Upickle" (Json String)
write('A': Char)                  returns "A" (JSON String)
write(10: Int)                    returns 10 (JSON Number)
write(10: Float)                  returns 10 (JSON Number)
write(10.0: Double)               returns 10 (JSON Number)
write(1000000L: Long)             returns "10" (Json String)

Scala Collections:

write(List("Hello", "World"))     returns ["Hello","World"]    (JSON List)
write(Array("Hello", "uPickle"))  returns ["Hello","uPickle"]  (JSON List)

Scala Options:

write(Some("uPickle"))            returns ["uPickle"]   (JSON List)
write(None)                       returns []            (JSON List)

Scala case classes

case class MyuPickle(libraryName: String, _type: String) 
object MyuPickle { 
   implicit def rw: RW[MyuPickle] = macroRW 
} 
//now to serialize it 
write(MyuPickle("uPickle", "JSON Serializer"))                                   returns {"libraryName":"uPickle","_type":"JSON Serializer"}
//to deserialize it
read[MyuPickle]("{\"libraryName\":\"uPickle\",\"_type\":\"JSON Serializer\"}")   returns MyuPickle(uPickle,JSON Serializer)

Custom read/write

import upickle.default._

case class CustomPickle(libraryName: String, _type: String)
object CustomPickle {
  implicit val rw = upickle.default.readwriter[String].bimap[CustomPickle](
    customPickle => customPickle.libraryName + " " + customPickle._type,
    str => {
      val Array(name, _type) = str.split(" ", 2)
      new CustomPickle(name, _type)
    }
  )
}

write(CustomPickle("uPickle", "json serializer"))   returns "uPickle json serializer"
read[CustomPickle]("\"uPickle json serializer\"")   returns CustomPickle(uPickle,json serializer)

Supported Types

uPickle provides read/write for the following types:

• Boolean, Byte, Char, Short, Int, Long, Float, Double
• Tuples from 1 to 22
• Immutable Seq, List, Vector, Set, SortedSet, Option, Array, Maps, and all other collections with a reasonable CanBuildFrom implementation
• Duration, Either
• Stand-alone case classes and case objects, and their generic equivalents,
• Non-generic case classes and case objects that are part of a sealed trait or sealed classhierarchy
• sealed trait and sealed classes themselves, assuming that all subclasses are picklable
• UUIDs
• null

In my next blog, I will compare different serializers and show you how uPickle stands out from all. But let me share the stats that I have got:

Till then,

Happy reading…

Reference:

uPickle Documentation

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