serde-flexible

serde-flexible is a Rust library that enhances the flexibility of deserialization with Serde. It is designed to handle scenarios where clients may provide input data in varying formats or make mistakes with data types. This library allows you to define custom deserialization behavior for specific fields, making it easier to work with non-standard or inconsistent data.

Features

Flexible deserialization for fields that can accept multiple formats.
Support for uniquely reducible types (e.g., treating integers as strings during deserialization).
Simplifies handling of real-world data from unreliable sources.

Example

use serde::Deserialize;
use serde_flexible::{as_string, as_string_opt};

#[derive(Debug, Deserialize, PartialEq)]
struct Message {
    #[serde(deserialize_with = "as_string")]
    owner: String,

    #[serde(deserialize_with = "as_string_opt")]
    referral: Option<String>,
}

#[test]
fn test_base_good_parse() {
    assert_eq!(
        serde_json::from_str::<Message>(r#"{
            "owner": "8a8cc628-88e3-4550-90c0-a64bd8f446dd", 
            "referral": 7132,
        }"#).unwrap(),
        Message {
            owner: "8a8cc628-88e3-4550-90c0-a64bd8f446dd".to_string(),
            referral: Some("7132".to_string())
        }
    );
}

All Possible Deserializers

Below are all the deserializers provided by serde-flexible, along with their descriptions:

Standard Deserializers

as_bool: Converts any input that can be interpreted as a boolean to bool. For example, "true", 1, and 0 can all be deserialized as true or false.
as_f64: Converts any input that can be interpreted as a floating-point number to f64. For example, "3.14" will be deserialized as 3.14.
as_i64: Converts any input that can be interpreted as an integer to i64. For example, "42" and 42 will be deserialized as 42.
as_string: Converts any input that can be interpreted as a string to String. For example, 123 will be converted to "123".
as_u64: Converts any input that can be interpreted as an unsigned integer to u64. For example, "100" and 100 will be deserialized as 100.

Optional Deserializers

These deserializers allow the field to accept null or missing values in addition to valid inputs: