node-marshal

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

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

Installation

npm install marshal

Use

Basic use

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

Decode a Rails cookie

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

See clayzermk1/rails-cookie-parser for an example.

Features / Limitations

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()

Supported Types

• nil (converted to null)
• booleans
• integers
• floats (thank you @tgriesser!)
• bignums (converted to strings. bignums are broken in the pre-release version v0.2.1, if you need bignum support please do not use v0.2.1.)
• raw strings
• symbols
• symbol links
• object links
• IVARs (encoded strings only, regular expressions are not supported)
• arrays
• objects
• hashes

Unsupported Types

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

Notes

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