Crate no_proto

Simple & Performant Serialization with RPC

Performance of Protocol Buffers with flexibility of JSON

Github | Crates.io | Documentation

Features

• Zero dependencies
• Zero copy deserialization
• no_std support, WASM ready
• Native byte-wise sorting
• Extensive Documentation & Testing
• Easily mutate, add or delete values in existing buffers
• Schemas allow default values and non destructive updates
• Supports most common native data types
• Supports collection types (list, map, table & tuple)
• Supports deep nesting of collection types
• Easy and performant export to JSON.
• Thoroughly documented & simple data storage format
• Panic/unwrap() free, this library will never cause a panic in your application.
• Simple, powerful transport agnostic RPC Framework.

NoProto allows you to store, read & mutate structured data with very little overhead. It's like Protocol Buffers except schemas are dynamic at runtime and buffers are mutable. It's like JSON but way faster, type safe and supports native types. Also unlike Protocol Buffers you can insert values in any order and values can later be removed or updated without rebuilding the whole buffer.

Like Protocol Buffers schemas are seperate from the data buffers and are required to read, create or update data buffers.

Byte-wise sorting comes in the box and is a first class operation. Two NoProto buffers can be compared at the byte level without deserializing and a correct ordering between the buffer's internal values will be the result. This is extremely useful for storing ordered keys in databases.

Compared to Protocol Buffers

• Faster serialization & deserialization performance
• Updating buffers is orders of magnitude faster
• Easier & Simpler API
• Schemas are dynamic at runtime, no compilation step
• Supports more types and better nested type support
• Byte-wise sorting is first class operation
• Mutate (add/delete/update) existing/imported buffers

Compared to JSON / BSON

• Far more space efficient
• Significantly faster serialization & deserialization
• Deserializtion is zero copy
• Has schemas / type safe
• Supports byte-wise sorting
• Supports raw bytes & other native types

Format	Zero-Copy	Size Limit	Mutable	Schemas	Language Agnostic	No Compiling	Byte-wise Sorting
NoProto	✓	~64KB	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
JSON	𐄂	Unlimited	✓	𐄂	✓	✓	𐄂
BSON	𐄂	~16MB	✓	𐄂	✓	✓	𐄂
MessagePack	𐄂	Unlimited	✓	𐄂	✓	✓	𐄂
FlatBuffers	✓	~2GB	𐄂	✓	✓	𐄂	𐄂
Protocol Buffers	𐄂	~2GB	𐄂	✓	✓	𐄂	𐄂
Cap'N Proto	✓	2^64 Bytes	𐄂	✓	✓	𐄂	𐄂
Veriform	𐄂	?	𐄂	𐄂	𐄂	𐄂	𐄂

Quick Example

use no_proto::error::NP_Error;
use no_proto::NP_Factory;
use no_proto::collection::table::NP_Table;
 
// JSON is used to describe schema for the factory
// Each factory represents a single schema
// One factory can be used to serialize/deserialize any number of buffers
let user_factory = NP_Factory::new(r#"{
    "type": "table",
    "columns": [
        ["name",   {"type": "string"}],
        ["age",    {"type": "u16", "default": 0}],
        ["tags",   {"type": "list", "of": {
            "type": "string"
        }}]
    ]
}"#)?;
 
 
// create a new empty buffer
let mut user_buffer = user_factory.empty_buffer(None); // optional capacity, optional address size (u16 by default)
 
// set an internal value of the buffer, set the  "name" column
user_buffer.set(&["name"], "Billy Joel")?;
 
// assign nested internal values, sets the first tag element
user_buffer.set(&["tags", "0"], "first tag")?;
 
// get an internal value of the buffer from the "name" column
let name = user_buffer.get::<&str>(&["name"])?;
assert_eq!(name, Some("Billy Joel"));
 
// close buffer and get internal bytes
let user_bytes: Vec<u8> = user_buffer.close();
 
// open the buffer again
let user_buffer = user_factory.open_buffer(user_bytes);
 
// get nested internal value, first tag from the tag list
let tag = user_buffer.get::<&str>(&["tags", "0"])?;
assert_eq!(tag, Some("first tag"));
 
// get nested internal value, the age field
let age = user_buffer.get::<u16>(&["age"])?;
// returns default value from schema
assert_eq!(age, Some(0u16));
 
// close again
let user_bytes: Vec<u8> = user_buffer.close();
 
 
// we can now save user_bytes to disk, 
// send it over the network, or whatever else is needed with the data
 
 

Guided Learning / Next Steps:

1. Schemas - Learn how to build & work with schemas.
2. Factories - Parsing schemas into something you can work with.
3. Buffers - How to create, update & compact buffers/data.
4. RPC Framework - How to use the RPC Framework APIs.
5. Data & Schema Format - Learn how data is saved into the buffer.

Benchmarks

While it's difficult to properly benchmark libraries like these in a fair way, I've made an attempt in the graph below. These benchmarks are available in the bench folder and you can easily run them yourself with cargo run --release.

The format and data used in the benchmarks were taken from the flatbuffers benchmarks github repo. You should always benchmark/test your own use case for each library before making any decisions on what to use.

Legend: Ops / Millisecond, higher is better

Library	Encode	Decode All	Decode 1	Update 1	Size (bytes)	Size (Zlib)
NoProto	822	1105	52632	10638	284	229
Protocol Buffers 2	723	881	902	384	220	163
MessagePack	99	163	171	91	431	245
JSON	436	299	374	287	673	246
BSON	82	78	83	62	600	279

• Encode: Transfer a collection of 33 fields of test data into a serialized Vec<u8>.
• Decode All: Deserialize the test object from the Vec<u8> into all 33 fields.
• Decode 1: Deserialize the test object from the Vec<u8> into one field.
• Update 1: Deserialize, update a single field, then serialize back into Vec<u8>.

Complete benchmark source code is available here.

In my opinion the benchmarks above make NoProto the clear winner if you ever plan to mutate or update your buffer data. If buffer data can always be immutable and the fixed compiled schemas aren't an issue, Flatbuffers is the better choice.

I also think there's a strong argument here against using data without a schema. The cost of an entirely flexible formats like JSON or BSON is crazy. Putting schemas on your data not only increases your data hygiene but makes the storage of the data far more comapct while increasing the deserialization and serialization perfomrance substantially.

Limitations

• Buffers cannot be larger than 2^16 bytes (~64kb).
• Collections (Lists, Maps, Tuples & Tables) cannot have more than 255 immediate child items.
• Enum/Option types are limited to 255 choices and choice strings cannot be larger than 255 bytes.
• Tables are limited to 255 columns and column names cannot be larger than 255 bytes.
• Buffers are not validated or checked before deserializing.

Non Goals / Known Tradeoffs

If every CPU cycle counts, you don't mind compiling fixed schemas and you don't plan to mutate your buffers/objects, FlatBuffers/CapnProto is probably the way to go. It's impossible to make a flexible format like NoProto as fast as formats that compile your schemas ahead of time and store data immutably.

---

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2020 Scott Lott

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Modules

buffer	Top level abstraction for buffer objects
buffer_ro	Top level abstraction for buffer objects (read only)
collection	Collections: NP_Table, NP_Tuple, NP_List & NP_Map
error	Primary error type used by the library
format	NoProto Data Format Documentaion
json_flex	JSON Parser, serializer and deserializer
memory	Internal buffer memory management
pointer	All values in buffers are accessed and modified through pointers
rpc	Remote Procedure Call APIs
schema	Schemas are JSON used to declare the shape of buffer objects

Structs

NP_Factory	Factories are created from schemas. Once you have a factory you can use it to create new buffers or open existing ones.
NP_Size_Data	When calling maybe_compact on a buffer, this struct is provided to help make a choice on wether to compact or not.

Enums

NP_Schema_Bytes

The schema bytes container