node-marshal

Parse Ruby's Marshal strings into JavaScript objects/JSON.

This module could not have been built without this awesome blog post series.

Installation

npm install marshal

Use

Basic use

var Marshal = require('marshal');
var m = new Marshal('0408220a68656c6c6f', 'hex');
console.log(m.parsed); // 'hello'

Decode a Rails cookie

This library was purpose-built for sharing a Rails cookie with an Express session.

See instore/rails-cookie-parser for an example.

Features / Limitations

Able to convert a Marshal string into a JavaScript object (not all types are supported, if you see one you would like supported please create an issue). i.e. Marshal.load()

Unable to convert a JavaScript object into a Marshal string. i.e. Marshal.dump()

Supported Types

• nil (converted to null)
• booleans
• integers
• floats (thank you @tgriesser!)
• bignums (bignums are broken after v0.2.0, if you need bignum support please use v0.2.0)
• raw strings
• symbols
• symbol links
• object links
• IVARs (encoded strings, regular expressions are not supported)
• arrays
• objects
• hashes

Unsupported Types

• classes
• modules
• regular expressions
• others (see the RubySpec Marshal spec)

Notes

From what I can tell, positive integers are unsigned and negative integers are signed. Thus, positive integers have twice the range as negative integers.

Acknowledgements

The bignum base conversion algorithm was adapted from MikeMcl/decimal.js which is copyright Michael Mclaughlin.