encoding/asn1: inconsistent APIs #1133
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Gobs can't implement marshal and unmarshal in the raw the way JSON and ASN1 can because, unlike JSON and ASN1, there is type information stored in the data. It's a stream protocol, not a packet protocol. There could be a variant that always includes the type information but that would be wasteful and could lead to bad programming. |
Rob points out that gob only makes sense in stream mode. Json has a stream mode that matches the gob one exactly (read the docs for Encoder and Decoder in those packages). ASN.1 is not general enough to expend effort on things like streams. It's such an awful format. The only reason anyone takes it seriously is you have to use it to decode SSL certificates, and that's all the package is intended for. JSON and ASN.1 are different too: ASN.1 is good at binary blobs of data while that's arguably JSON's one weakness. Even so, I think you're right that it would be good to use the same signature for Marshal and Unmarshal in both, if only to set a good precedent for future packages. I'll update package asn1. Owner changed to r...@golang.org. Status changed to Started. |
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This issue was closed by revision 8206baf. Status changed to Fixed. |
mikioh
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by jan.newmarch:
Which revision are you using? (hg identify) 6d3022dfb42b tip Several packages in Go involve serialisation: gob, asn1, json. But they have mutually inconsistent APIs, which could cause programmer errors down the track. Still time to fix them? 1) json: func Marshal(v interface{}) ([]byte, os.Error) asn1: func MarshalToMemory(val interface{}) ([]byte, os.Error) gob: no function json and asn1 have different names for same functionality, missing in gob. 2) asn1: func Marshal(out io.Writer, val interface{}) os.Error json: no equivalent gob: no equivalent Note same name but different parameter and return types for asn1.Marshal compared to json.Marshal 3) asn1: func Unmarshal(val interface{}, b []byte) (rest []byte, err os.Error) json: func Unmarshal(data []byte, v interface{}) os.Error Parameters are swapped, result is different. 4) json and gob have Decoder and Encoder, asn1 doesn't json: func NewDecoder(r io.Reader) *Decoder gob: func NewDecoder(r io.Reader) *Decoder asn1: none 5) json: func (dec *Decoder) Decode(v interface{}) os.Error gob: func (dec *Decoder) Decode(e interface{}) os.Error asn1: none Summary: gob and json are almost identical, except json has additional Marshal/Unmarshal functions. asn1 is clearly at variance to both the others. XML could also be considered a serialisation technique, but that is even more variant. This is perhaps excusable, but then again maybe not.The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered: