AnyEnc Binary Format

AnyEnc is a high-performance binary format used by Any-Store. The format is designed to handle various data types, including raw binary, and allows direct byte-level comparisons via bytes.Compare. Its structure is similar to JSON. The Go library’s interface closely resembles that of fastjson, providing a high-performance, memory-efficient API.

Data Format Structure

Each serialized item starts with a byte that defines its type. Supported data types and their corresponding byte identifiers:

• 0x01 — Null value
• 0x02 — Number (float64)
• 0x03 — String
• 0x04 — Boolean False
• 0x05 — Boolean True
• 0x06 — Array
• 0x07 — Object
• 0x08 — Binary data

Serialization Details:

• Null, True, False: Represented by a single byte indicating the type (0x01, 0x05, or 0x04).
• Number: A type byte (0x02) followed by an 8-byte float64.
• String: A type byte (0x03), followed by the string data, terminated by 0x00.
• Array: A type byte (0x06), followed by serialized elements, ending with 0x00.
• Object: A type byte (0x07), followed by key-value pairs (key string terminated by 0x00, followed by the value), and ending with 0x00 for both key and value.
• Binary: A type byte (0x08), followed by a 4-byte big-endian uint64 length, and the binary data.

Example Encodings

• A string "hello":
  0x03 + "hello" + 0x00

• An array [42, true]:
  0x06 + 0x02 + <8-byte float for 42> + 0x05 + 0x00

• An object {"key": "value"}:
  0x07 + "key" + 0x00 + 0x03 + "value" + 0x00 + 0x00