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

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

npm install marshal

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

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

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

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()

• nil (converted to null)
• booleans
• integers
• bignums
• raw strings
• symbols
• symbol links
• object links
• IVARs (encoded strings, regular expressions are not supported)
• arrays
• objects
• hashes

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

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

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