JSON and NODE

[hallsofvallhalla]

So I know need to add several arrays to my map system and transfer them through Node. I want to make this as small as a footprint as possible. It will be around 10 arrays with the size of 144. I am not that familiar with JSON but would it be the best choice for transferring this info? Will it reduce the size significantly?

[Jackolantern]

JSON is not really designed to shrink your dataset, but rather, to make it easy to work with (particularly in Javascript since they are native JS objects). JSON was largely a response to the horrid bother of dealing with XML data in the early-to-mid 2000's.

If you have that much data, you would likely be better off with a custom, compressed protocol. Provided you can write the code to pack it on the server side and the code to unpack it on the client-side, it can be as tight as you want. For example, you could even have something that looks like this:

Code: Select all

"[ajD342sasDFg;aA35iDiap@;p51z5OHH9a;]"

...where each symbol represents a map point type and the semi-colons are some kind of delimiter. Of course I have no idea if that specific format would be helpful, since only you would know a way to represent it.

JSON is simply a way of representing data, but it is not a byte-efficient way of storing it for certain usages (for strings it is actually quite efficient, but games don't typically need whole, unique strings to represent map data).

[jwalton922]

You can come up with your own compression algorithm or use gzip or other compression technologies. Node .6 or higher has it built in I believe. I have not done it myself, but a google search should help you figure out how to do it.

This link was for a library that is no longer needed I believe: http://me.dt.in.th/page/NodeJS-express-gzip . Make sure you read the June update at the top if you look at the link (That's where I read it was built into Node).

[hallsofvallhalla]

interesting info here thanks. I assumed JSON shrunk the data but actually never questioned how. I already have a compressed version of the data coming across. I basically use a simple array of numbers to represent the map much like Impact works. The entire map with data is around 200 bytes.

[Jackolantern]

200 bytes per MUD movement doesn't sound bad at all

[hallsofvallhalla]

kewl. I was hoping it would be good. I may have to stretch that but I figure 1 character = about a byte so I just got to keep it low. I want to do a stress test soon. Might get it up and going with the chat system then have everyone test it.