local serialization = {} -- Important: pretty formatting will allow presenting non-serializable values -- but may generate output that cannot be unserialized back. function serialization.serialize(value, pretty) local kw = {["and"]=true, ["break"]=true, ["do"]=true, ["else"]=true, ["elseif"]=true, ["end"]=true, ["false"]=true, ["for"]=true, ["function"]=true, ["goto"]=true, ["if"]=true, ["in"]=true, ["local"]=true, ["nil"]=true, ["not"]=true, ["or"]=true, ["repeat"]=true, ["return"]=true, ["then"]=true, ["true"]=true, ["until"]=true, ["while"]=true} local id = "^[%a_][%w_]*$" local ts = {} local function s(v, l) local t = type(v) if t == "nil" then return "nil" elseif t == "boolean" then return v and "true" or "false" elseif t == "number" then if v ~= v then return "0/0" elseif v == math.huge then return "math.huge" elseif v == -math.huge then return "-math.huge" else return tostring(v) end elseif t == "string" then return string.format("%q", v):gsub("\\\n","\\n") elseif t == "table" and pretty and getmetatable(v) and getmetatable(v).__tostring then return tostring(v) elseif t == "table" then if ts[v] then if pretty then return "recursion" else error("tables with cycles are not supported") end end ts[v] = true local i, r = 1, nil local f if pretty then local ks, sks, oks = {}, {}, {} for k in pairs(v) do if type(k) == "number" then table.insert(ks, k) elseif type(k) == "string" then table.insert(sks, k) else table.insert(oks, k) end end table.sort(ks) table.sort(sks) for _, k in ipairs(sks) do table.insert(ks, k) end for _, k in ipairs(oks) do table.insert(ks, k) end local n = 0 f = table.pack(function() n = n + 1 local k = ks[n] if k ~= nil then return k, v[k] else return nil end end) else f = table.pack(pairs(v)) end for k, v in table.unpack(f) do if r then r = r .. "," .. (pretty and ("\n" .. string.rep(" ", l)) or "") else r = "{" end local tk = type(k) if tk == "number" and k == i then i = i + 1 r = r .. s(v, l + 1) else if tk == "string" and not kw[k] and string.match(k, id) then r = r .. k else r = r .. "[" .. s(k, l + 1) .. "]" end r = r .. "=" .. s(v, l + 1) end end ts[v] = nil -- allow writing same table more than once return (r or "{") .. "}" else if pretty then return tostring(t) else error("unsupported type: " .. t) end end end local result = s(value, 1) local limit = type(pretty) == "number" and pretty or 10 if pretty then local truncate = 0 while limit > 0 and truncate do truncate = string.find(result, "\n", truncate + 1, true) limit = limit - 1 end if truncate then return result:sub(1, truncate) .. "..." end end return result end function serialization.unserialize(data) local result, reason = load("return " .. data, "=data", _, {math={huge=math.huge}}) if not result then return nil, reason end local ok, output = pcall(result) if not ok then return nil, output end return output end return serialization