[Opensim-dev] what to use for serializing structures? LLSD? XmlSerializer? JSON?

[James Neal]

Use the LLSD implementation in libsecondlife.  It has the advantage of 
being already done. We should be breaking LLSD out into its own library 
soon, so OpenSim won't need a newer version.

LLSD has a few serialization formats.  XML of course as well as a binary 
serialization and a notation format that looks like JSON. I'm not sure 
if it is valid JSON or not.
An argument against the LLSD notation format from John Hurliman 
https://lists.secondlife.com/pipermail/sldev/2007-October/006125.html 
which makes some good points.

Baba

On Tue, May 13, 2008 10:25, Dr Scofield wrote:
> hi,
>
> we are currently looking at adding REST support to the RemoteAdmin 
> plugin (other stuff to follow) --- the idea being that we can get 
> information about (as well as change state of) a running OpenSim 
> instance not only via XmlRpc but also via REST.
>
> looking at the way we currently deal with serialization we either
>
>     * use LLSD where mandated by secondlife (e.g., CAPS)
>     * use System.Xml.XmlSerializer
>     * use XmlRpc serialization (which goes back to System.Xml)
>
> LLSD is being used by linden lab's and is proposed by LL/SLAWG as the 
> serialization protocol of choice (IIUC). in my opinion it suffers from 
> being a bit verbose and not really easy to parse.
>
> XmlSerializer is "built in". on the other hand it's wordy and more 
> complex to parse; also, it doesn't distinguish between the number 4711 
> and the string "4711" --- you have to know that a certain tag contains a 
> string (or a number).
>
> JSON is lean, and easy to use from AJAX apps as well as python scripts 
> (and the likes). it requires an additional DLL. it does however 
> distinguish between strings and numbers. using a library like 
> jsonexserializer (http://code.google.com/p/jsonexserializer/ --- BSD 
> license) makes it easy to use from C#.
>
> personally, i've started to like JSON because it's lean and easy to use 
> --- but i'd like to hear from you guys what you think about this.
>
>     cheers,
>     dr scofield
>
>