Lua table serialization to CSV-like string

cerial.lua

--[[
   cerial.lua

   Copyright 2018 wesley werner <wesley.werner@gmail.com>

   This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
   the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
   any later version.

   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
   GNU General Public License for more details.

   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
   along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

   Serialize a Lua table into a CSV-like string.
   Handles standard types and circular table references.
   Does not serialize user data, functions or up-values.

   Usage:

   local cerial = require("cerial")
   local cerialstring = cerial.encode(table)
   local reconstructed = cerial.decode(cerialstring)

   Performance vs pickle over 10000 encodes

   cerial:
    serialized to 365 bytes

    real	0m0.854s
    user	0m0.852s
    sys	0m0.000s

   pickle:
    serialized to 463 bytes

    real	0m0.740s
    user	0m0.740s
    sys	0m0.004s

]]--

local cerial = { }
local tablerefs = { }
local sortedrefs = { }

function string.starts(String, Start)
    return string.sub(String,1,string.len(Start))==Start
end

function string.ends(String, End)
    return End=='' or string.sub(String,-string.len(End))==End
end

local function escapeCSV(s)
    if string.find(s, '[,"]') then
        s = '"' .. string.gsub(s, '"', '""') .. '"'
    end
    return s
end

local function fromCSV(s)
    s = s .. ','        -- ending comma
    local t = {}        -- table to collect fields
    local fieldstart = 1

    repeat
        -- next field is quoted? (start with `"'?)
        if string.find(s, '^"', fieldstart) then
            local a, c
            local i  = fieldstart
            repeat
                -- find closing quote
                a, i, c = string.find(s, '"("?)', i+1)
            until c ~= '"'    -- quote not followed by quote?
            if not i then error('unmatched "') end
            local f = string.sub(s, fieldstart+1, i-1)
            table.insert(t, (string.gsub(f, '""', '"')))
            fieldstart = string.find(s, ',', i) + 1
        else
            -- unquoted; find next comma
            local nexti = string.find(s, ',', fieldstart)
            table.insert(t, string.sub(s, fieldstart, nexti-1))
            fieldstart = nexti + 1
        end
    until fieldstart > string.len(s)

    -- remove blanks
    for n, l in ipairs(t) do
        if l:len() == 0 then
            table.remove(t, n)
        end
    end

  return t

end

function cerial.encode(target)

    tablerefs = { }
    sortedrefs = { }
    cerial.getRefs(target)
    local headers = cerial.headers()
    local details = cerial.details()
    return headers .. details

end

function cerial.decode(target)

    function splitlines(str)
        local t = {}
        local function helper(line)
            table.insert(t, line)
            return ""
        end
        helper((str:gsub("(.-)\r?\n", helper)))
        return t
    end

    local lines = splitlines(target)

    decodedrefs = { }
    local headers = { }

    for lineno, line in ipairs(lines) do

        -- split csv
        local fields = fromCSV(line)

        -- first field is record indicator
        local refno = tonumber(fields[1])

        -- build tables and headers
        for fieldno, fieldvalue in ipairs(fields) do

            -- build column names
            if refno == 0 then

                if fieldno == 1 then
                    -- create a table reference
                    table.insert(decodedrefs, { })
                    table.insert(headers, { })
                else
                    -- record column name
                    table.insert(headers[#headers], fieldvalue)
                end

            end

        end

        -- process columns
        for fieldno, fieldvalue in ipairs(fields) do

            -- build column names
            if refno > 0 and fieldno > 1 then

                local columnname = headers[refno][fieldno - 1]

                -- assign field value
                local startref = string.starts(fieldvalue, "[")
                local endref = string.ends(fieldvalue, "]")

                -- use column index if a number, the name otherwise
                local parsedname = tonumber(columnname) or columnname

                if startref and endref then
                    local subrefno = tonumber(fieldvalue:sub(2, -2))
                    decodedrefs[refno][parsedname] = decodedrefs[subrefno]
                    --print("link",parsedname,decodedrefs[subrefno], subrefno)
                else
                    -- parse value as number
                    local parsedvalue = tonumber(fieldvalue) or fieldvalue
                    decodedrefs[refno][parsedname] = parsedvalue
                end

            end

        end

    end

    return decodedrefs[1]

end

function cerial.headers()

    local lines = { }

    -- headers
    for n, ref in ipairs(sortedrefs) do

        local items = { "00" }

        for k, v in pairs(ref) do
            table.insert(items, k)
        end

        table.insert(lines, table.concat(items, ","))

    end

    return table.concat(lines, "\n").."\n"

end

function cerial.details()

    local lines = { }

    for n, ref in ipairs(sortedrefs) do

        local refno = tablerefs[ref]
        local items = { string.format("%.2d", refno) }

        for k, v in pairs(ref) do
            local subref = tablerefs[v]
            if subref then
                table.insert(items, string.format("[%.2d]", subref))
            else
                table.insert(items, escapeCSV(tostring(v)))
            end
        end

        table.insert(lines, table.concat(items, ","))

    end

    return table.concat(lines, "\n").."\n"

end

function cerial.getRefs(target)

    local counter = 1
    local complete = false

    tablerefs[target] = counter
    counter = counter + 1

    -- root references
    for k, v in pairs(target) do
        if type(v) == "table" then
            if not tablerefs[v] then
                tablerefs[v] = counter
                counter = counter + 1
            end
        end
    end

    -- subtable references
    while not complete do
        complete = true
        for rv, rk in pairs(tablerefs) do
            for k, v in pairs(rv) do
                if type(v) == "table" then
                    if not tablerefs[v] then
                        complete = false
                        tablerefs[v] = counter
                        counter = counter + 1
                    end
                end
            end
        end
    end

    -- sorted ref list
    for v, k in pairs(tablerefs) do
        sortedrefs[k] = v
    end

end

return cerial