CBOR: Concise Binary Object Representation

The Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) is a data format whose

design goals include the possibility of extremely small code size, fairly
small message size, and extensibility without the need for version
negotiation.
CBOR is defined in an Internet Standards Document, RFC 7049. The
format has been designed to be stable for decades.
The objectives of CBOR, roughly in decreasing order of
importance,are:

1. The representation must be able to unambiguously encode most

common data formats used in Internet standards.
2. The code for an encoder or decoder must be able to be compact in
order to support systems with very limited memory, processor
power, and instruction sets.
3. Data must be able to be decoded without a schema description.
4. The serialization must be reasonably compact, but data compactness
is secondary to code compactness for the encoder and decoder.
5. The format must be applicable to both constrained nodes and high-
volume applications.
6. The format must support all JSON data types for conversion to and
from JSON.
7. The format must be extensible, and the extended data must be
decodable by earlier decoders.

In the context of JSON data format:

 JSON falls short when we have to send binary data.

 We typically have to base64 encode the binary data to be sent in the
JSON payload, this typically adds extra size to the data (about 1/3).
 The receiver needs to have a prior knowledge of incoming data so
that they can base64 decode the string in the payload.

CBOR is compact(less bytes for same representation) and

faster(encoding and decoding time) than JSON.
Example:
The following JSON data takes 55 bytes.
{"name":"rushi","email":"admin@rushis.com","zip":75001}
When encoded using CBOR, it takes 44 bytes.
Here is the CBOR playground to explore more.
A3646E616D6565727573686965656D61696C7061646D696E40727573686
9732E636F6D637A69701A000124F9
Breaking the above representation down:
A3 # map(3)
64 # text(4)
6E616D65 # "name"
65 # text(5)
7275736869 # "rushi"
65 # text(5)
656D61696C # "email"
70 # text(16)
61646D696E407275736869732E636F6D # "admin@rushis.com"
63 # text(3)
7A6970 # "zip"
1A 000124F9 # unsigned(75001)
Pefer CBOR over JSON When you have the following:

 Payload is more than 2KB

 Payload has binary data.
 When data-payload readability over the network is not a constraint.

There are libraries available for most languages and incorporating CBOR

in-place for JSON data-interchange should not take more than few minutes
to modify your existing code. Simply put, CBOR can be used as a binary
drop-in replacement for JSON.
For example, folks already using Jackson library for Java can do the
following:

Jackson (Java) data format module that supports reading and writing
CBOR (“Concise Binary Object Representation”) encoded data. Module
extends standard Jackson streaming API (JsonFactory, JsonParser,
JsonGenerator), and as such works seamlessly with all the higher level
data abstractions (data binding, tree model, and pluggable extensions).
1 CBORFactory f = new CBORFactory();
2 ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper(f);
3 // and then read/write data as usual
4 SomeType value = ...;
5 byte[] cborData = mapper.writeValueAsBytes(value);
6 SomeType otherValue = mapper.readValue(cborData, SomeType.class);

Typical Javascript Front-end code:

1 // https://github.com/paroga/cbor-js
2 // Include cbor.js in your or HTML page:
3 // <script src="path/to/cbor.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
4 
5 // Then you can use it via the CBOR-object in your code:
6 
7 var initial = { Hello: "World" };
8 var encoded = CBOR.encode(initial);
9 var decoded = CBOR.decode(encoded);