Storable::AMF(3)

NAME
Storable::AMF - serializing/deserializing AMF0/AMF3 data

SYNOPSIS
  use Storable::AMF0 qw(freeze thaw); # Handle AMF0 data
  use Storable::AMF3 qw(freeze thaw); # Handle AMF3 data

  $amf0 = freeze($perl_object);
  if ($@){
          die "Can't freeze perl_object"
  };

  $perl_object = thaw($amf0);
  if ($@){
          die "It seems data is not valid AMF0 data";
  }

  # Deparse one object and getting its length
  use Storable::AMF0 qw(deparse_amf);

  # reading stream of objects
  my $bytea = freeze($a1) . freeze($a2) . ...; # objects data stream
  my @objects;
  while( length $bytea ){
        my( $obj, $length_of_packet ) = deparse_amf( my $bytea = freeze($a1) . freeze($a) ... );
        if ( $@ ){
                # We meet trouble with deparse
                die "This is not amf0 data";
        }
        # have read one object and gets it's length
        # So put it in array and continue
        push @objects, $obj;
        # remove readed part of object bytearray
        substr $bytea, 0, $length_of_packet, '';
  }

  # Dumping/Undumping amf0 objects to/from file

  store $perl_object, 'file';
  $restored_perl_object = retrieve 'file';

  # Same with locking

  lock_store \%table, 'file';
  $hashref = lock_retrieve('file');

  # Dates serializing/deserializing

  use Storable::AMF0 qw(new_amfdate perl_date);
  my $timestamp = time(); # UTC time --- seconds from epoch

  # new_amfdate( $time )
  my $object = { now => new_amfdate( $timestamp ), name => "Object with DateTime" };
  my $bytea  = freeze ( $object );

  # getting perl timestamp from thawed flash object;

  my $object = thaw $bytes;

  my $time   = perl_date( $object->{field_with_date} );

  - or use simple by your own risk

  my $time   = $object->{field_with_date} ; #

  # return $time may be seconds from epoch, or milliseconds from epoch, or some kind of object .
  # Result are not defined at this time it depends of module version

  # Working with AMF0 and AMF3 format simultaneously
  use Storable::AMF0 ();
  use Storable::AMF3 ();

  $bytea = Storable::AMF0::freeze( ... );
  $bytea = Storable::AMF3::freeze( ... );

  ...

DESCRIPTION
This module is (de)serializer for Adobe's AMF0/AMF3 (Action Message Format ver 0-3). To deserialize AMF3 objects you can export function from Storable::AMF3 package Almost all function implemented in XS/C for speed, except file operation.

MOTIVATION
Speed, simplicity and agile.

BENCHMARKS
        About 50-60 times faster than Data::AMF pure perl module. (2009)
        About 40% faster than Storable in big objects.        (2009)
        About 6 times faster than Storable for small object    (2009)

FUNCTIONS

freeze($obj, [ $option]  ) --- Serialize perl object($obj) to AMF, and return AMF data if successfull. Set $@ in case of error and return undef of empty list.
thaw($amf0, [$option] ) --- Deserialize AMF data to perl object, and return the perl object if successfull. Set $@ in case of error and return undef of empty list.
deparse_amf $bytea --- deparse from bytea one item Return object and number of bytes readed if successull. Set $@ in case of error and return undef or empty list. in scalar context works as thaw
$date_object = new_amfdate( $perl_timestamp) Return object representing date in AMF world.
$perl_time = perl_date( $date_member ) Converts value from AMF date to perl timestampr, can croak.
store $obj, $file --- Store serialized AMF0 data to file
nstore $obj, $file --- Same as store
retrieve $obj, $file --- Retrieve serialized AMF0 data from file
lock_store $obj, $file --- Same as store but with Advisory locking
lock_nstore $obj, $file --- Same as lock_store
lock_retrieve $file --- Same as retrieve but with advisory locking
dclone $file --- Deep cloning data structure
ref_clear $obj --- recurrent cleaning arrayrefs and hashrefs.
ref_lost_memory $obj --- test if object contain lost memory fragments inside. (Example do { my $a = []; @$a=$a; $a})
parse_serializator_option =item parse_option generate option scalar for freeze/thaw/deparse_amf See Storable::AMF0 for complete list of options

EXPORT
  None by default.

LIMITATION
At current moment and with restriction of AMF0/AMF3 format referrences to scalar are not serialized, and can't/ may not serialize tied variables. And dualvars (See Scalar::Util) are serialized as string value. Freezing CODEREF, IO, Regexp, REF, GLOB, SCALAR referenses restricted.

SEE ALSO
Data::AMF, Storable, Storable::AMF0, Storable::AMF3

AUTHOR
Anatoliy Grishaev, <grian at cpan dot org>

THANKS
        Alberto Reggiori. ( basic externalized object support )
        Adam Lounds.      ( tests and some ideas and code for boolean support )

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
Copyright (C) 2011 by A. G. Grishaev

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.8 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.