Efficient JSON encoding for data that may be binary, but is often text
- by Evgeny
I need to send a JSON packet across the wire with the contents of an arbitrary file. This may be a binary file (like a ZIP file), but most often it will be plain ASCII text.
I'm currently using base64 encoding, which handles all files, but it increases the size of the data significantly - even if the file is ASCII to begin with. Is there a more efficient way I can encode the data, other than manually checking for any non-ASCII characters and then deciding whether or not to base64-encode it?
I'm currently writing this in Python, but will probably need to do the same in Java, C# and C++, so an easily portable solution would be preferable.
