Kiwi Message Format

Kiwi is a schema-based binary format for efficiently encoding trees of data. It's inspired by Google's Protocol Buffer format but is simpler, has a more compact encoding, and has better support for optional fields.

Goals:

Efficient encoding of common values: Variable-length encoding is used for numeric values where small values take up less space.
Efficient encoding of compound objects: The struct feature supports nested objects with zero encoding overhead.
Presence of optional fields is detectable: This is not possible with Protocol Buffers, especially for repeated fields.
Linearly serializable: Reading and writing are both single-scan operations so they are cache-efficient and have guaranteed time complexity.
Backwards compatibility: New versions of the schema can still read old data.
Forwards compatibility: Old versions of the schema can optionally read new data if a copy of the new schema is bundled with the data (the new schema lets the decoder skip over unknown fields).
Simple implementation: The API is very minimal and the generated C++ code only depends on a single file.

Non-goals:

Optimal bit-packing: Compression can be used after encoding for more space savings if needed.

Native Types

bool: A value that stores either true or false. Will use 1 byte.
byte: An unsigned 8-bit integer value. Uses 1 byte, obviously.
int: A 32-bit integer value stored using a variable-length encoding optimized for storing numbers with a small magnitude. Will use at most 5 bytes.
uint: A 32-bit integer value stored using a variable-length encoding optimized for storing small non-negative numbers. Will use at most 5 bytes.
float: A 32-bit floating-point number. Normally uses 4 bytes but a value of zero uses 1 byte (denormal numbers become zero when encoded).
string: A UTF-8 null-terminated string. Will use at least 1 byte.
T[]: Any type can be made into an array using the [] suffix.

User Types

enum: A uint with a restricted set of values that are identified by name. New fields can be added to any message while maintaining backwards compatibility.
struct: A compound value with a fixed set of fields that are always required and written out in order. New fields cannot be added to a struct once that struct is in use.
message: A compound value with optional fields. New fields can be added to any message while maintaining backwards compatibility.

Example Schema

enum Type {
  FLAT = 0;
  ROUND = 1;
  POINTED = 2;
}

struct Color {
  byte red;
  byte green;
  byte blue;
  byte alpha;
}

message Example {
  uint clientID = 1;
  Type type = 2;
  Color[] colors = 3;
}

Live Demo

See http://evanw.github.io/kiwi/ for a live demo of the schema compiler.

Usage Examples