One nice 'feature' of `kotlinx.serialization` is t...

# serialization

[darkmoon_uk]

One nice 'feature' of kotlinx.serialization is that, in many cases, we can use:

• 👁️ JSON in Debug builds for observability, then almost effortlessly switch to...
• ⚡ CBOR for Production, to gain the time/space optimisation afforded by that format
However; the StringFormat and BinaryFormat interfaces these conform to are disjoint - only the SerialFormat interface is common, with no common encode/decode functions.

To some degree this is understandable - one works with Strings and the other Bytes, so we'd expect them to be optimised for each.
But; there's surely an opportunity to make the switch a bit more seamless, something like this; but out-of-the-box:

fun SerialFormat.encode(obj: Any): ByteArray = when (this) {
    is BinaryFormat -> encodeToByteArray(obj)
    is StringFormat -> encodeToString(obj).encodeToByteArray()
    else -> throw IllegalArgumentException("Unsupported format: $this")
}

inline fun <reified T:Any> SerialFormat.decode(byteArray: ByteArray): T = when (this) {
    is BinaryFormat -> decodeFromByteArray(byteArray)
    is StringFormat -> decodeFromString(byteArray.decodeToString())
    else -> throw IllegalArgumentException("Unsupported format: $this")
}

Thoughts?

[CLOVIS]

I don't like throwing runtime exceptions for stuff that should be checked at compile-time.

You could create your own interface with the methods you want and create thin wrappers for BinaryFormat and StringFormat that implement it

[darkmoon_uk]

Agreed Ivan; let me be clear; I'm not proposing this code as is. It just illustrates a need, I'm asking who sees value in a 'better equivalent' to this, out of the box.

[ephemient]

for that use case I'd use Cbor 100% of the time and pretty-print it for debug

[ephemient]

then you won't run into issues of encoders that work with Json format and pass debug, but then fail in production