Serialization: Borsh, Json, ProtoBuf

If you spent some time looking at NEAR code, you’ll notice that we have different methods of serializing structures into strings. So in this article, we’ll compare these different approaches, and explain how and where we’re using them.

JSON

JSON doesn’t need much introduction. We’re using it for external APIs (jsonrpc) and configuration. It is a very popular, flexible and human-readable format.

Proto (Protocol Buffers)

We started using proto recently - and we plan to use it mostly for our network communication. Protocol buffers are strongly typed - they require you to create a .proto file, where you describe the contents of your message.

For example:

message HandshakeFailure {
  // Reason for rejecting the Handshake.
  Reason reason = 1;

  // Data about the peer.
  PeerInfo peer_info = 2;
  // GenesisId of the NEAR chain that the peer belongs to.
  GenesisId genesis_id = 3;
}

Afterwards, such a proto file is fed to protoc ‘compiler’ that returns auto-generated code (in our case Rust code) - that can be directly imported into your library.

The main benefit of protocol buffers is their backwards compatibility (as long as you adhere to the rules and don’t reuse the same field ids).

Borsh

Borsh is our custom serializer (link), that we use mostly for things that have to be hashed.

The main feature of Borsh is that, there are no two binary representations that deserialize into the same object.

You can read more on how Borsh serializes the data, by looking at the Specification tab on borsh.io.

The biggest pitfall/risk of Borsh, is that any change to the structure, might cause previous data to no longer be parseable.

For example, inserting a new enum ‘in the middle’:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
pub enum MyCar {
  Bmw,
  Ford,
}

If we change our enum to this:

pub enum MyCar {
  Bmw,
  Citroen,
  Ford, // !! WRONG - Ford objects cannot be deserialized anymore
}
}

This is especially tricky if we have conditional compilation:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
pub enum MyCar {
  Bmw,
  #[cfg(feature = "french_cars")]
  Citroen,
  Ford,
}
}

Is such a scenario - some of the objects created by binaries with this feature enabled, will not be parseable by binaries without this feature.

Removing and adding fields to structures is also dangerous.

Basically - the only ‘safe’ thing that you can do with Borsh - is add a new Enum value at the end.

Summary

So to recap what we’ve learned:

JSON - mostly used for external APIs - look for serde::Serialize/Deserialize

Proto - currently being developed to be used for network connections - objects have to be specified in proto file.

Borsh - for things that we hash (and currently also for all the things that we store on disk - but we might move to proto with this in the future). Look for BorshSerialize/BorshDeserialize

Questions

Why don’t you use JSON for everything?

While this is a tempting option, JSON has a few drawbacks:

size (json is self-describing, so all the field names etc are included every time)
non-canonical: JSON doesn’t specify strict ordering of the fields, so we’d have to do additional restrictions/rules on that - otherwise the same ‘conceptual’ message would end up with different hashes.

Ok - so how about proto for everything?

There are couple risks related with using proto for things that have to be hashed. A Serialized protocol buffer can contain additional data (for example fields with tag ids that you’re not using) and still successfully parse (that’s how it achieves backward compatibility).

For example, in this proto:

message First {
  string foo = 1;
  string bar = 2;
}
message Second {
  string foo = 1;
}

Every ‘First’ message will be successfully parsed as ‘Second’ message - which could lead to some programmatic bugs.

Advanced section - RawTrieNode

There is one more place in the code where we use a ‘custom’ encoding: RawTrieNodeWithSize defined in store/src/trie/raw_node.rs. While the format uses Borsh derives and API, there is a difference in how branch children ([Option<CryptoHash>; 16]) are encoded. Standard Borsh encoding would encode Option<CryptoHash> sixteen times. Instead, RawTrieNodeWithSize uses a bitmap to indicate which elements are set resulting in a different layout.

Imagine a children vector like this:

#![allow(unused)]
fn main() {
[Some(0x11), None, Some(0x12), None, None, …]
}

Here, we have children at index 0 and 2 which has a bitmap of 101

Custom encoder:

// Number of children determined by the bitmask
[16 bits bitmask][32 bytes child][32 bytes child]
[5][0x11][0x12]
// Total size: 2 + 32 + 32 = 68 bytes

Borsh:

[8 bits - 0 or 1][32 bytes child][8 bits 0 or 1][8 bits ]
[1][0x11][0][1][0x11][0][0]...
// Total size: 16 + 32 + 32 = 80 bytes

Code for encoding children is given in BorshSerialize implementation for ChildrenRef type and code for decoding in BorshDeserialize implementation for Children. All of that is in aforementioned store/src/trie/raw_node.rs file.

Guide to Nearcore Development