packetflattener

This code will flatten a complex object hierarchy to a single array, based on a template. This is useful for when you need a very high compression ratio on javascript data that needs to be sent over the internet, for example through Websockets. A detailed description can be found on:

http://www.castlequest.be/silenistudios/?p=212

Example

// template
var template = {
  field1: 0,
    field2: [{
        field21: 0,
        field22: 0,
        field23: {
            field231: 0,
            field232: 0
        }
    }],
    field3: 0
};

// data
var data = {
    field1: 1.0,
    field2: new Array(
        {
            field21: 2.1,
            field22: 2.2,
            field23: {
                field231: 2.31,
                field232: 2.32
            }
        },
        {
            field21: 2.1,
            field22: 2.2,
            field23: {
                field231: 2.31,
                field232: 2.32
            }
        }
    ),
    field3: 3.0
};

// flatten
var array = PacketFlattener.flatten(data, template);

// array is now [1, 2, 2.1, 2.2, 2.31, 2.32, 2.1, 2.2, 2.31, 2.32, 3] 

// unflatten again
var originalData = PacketFlattener.unflatten(array, template);

// originalData == data