dart:convert library Null safety

Encoders and decoders for converting between different data representations, including JSON and UTF-8.

In addition to converters for common data representations, this library provides support for implementing converters in a way which makes them easy to chain and to use with streams.

To use this library in your code:

import 'dart:convert';

Two commonly used converters are the top-level instances of JsonCodec and Utf8Codec, named json and utf8, respectively.

JSON

JSON is a simple text format for representing structured objects and collections.

A JsonCodec encodes JSON objects to strings and decodes strings to JSON objects. The json encoder/decoder transforms between strings and object structures, such as lists and maps, using the JSON format.

The json is the default implementation of JsonCodec.

Examples

var encoded = json.encode([1, 2, { "a": null }]);
var decoded = json.decode('["foo", { "bar": 499 }]');

For more information, see also JsonEncoder and JsonDecoder.

UTF-8

A Utf8Codec encodes strings to UTF-8 code units (bytes) and decodes UTF-8 code units to strings.

The utf8 is the default implementation of Utf8Codec.

Example:

var encoded = utf8.encode('Îñţérñåţîöñåļîžåţîờñ');
var decoded = utf8.decode([
  195, 142, 195, 177, 197, 163, 195, 169, 114, 195, 177, 195, 165, 197,
  163, 195, 174, 195, 182, 195, 177, 195, 165, 196, 188, 195, 174, 197,
  190, 195, 165, 197, 163, 195, 174, 225, 187, 157, 195, 177]);

For more information, see also Utf8Encoder and Utf8Decoder.

ASCII

An AsciiCodec encodes strings as ASCII codes stored as bytes and decodes ASCII bytes to strings. Not all characters can be represented as ASCII, so not all strings can be successfully converted.

The ascii is the default implementation of AsciiCodec.

Example:

var encoded = ascii.encode('This is ASCII!');
var decoded = ascii.decode([0x54, 0x68, 0x69, 0x73, 0x20, 0x69, 0x73,
                            0x20, 0x41, 0x53, 0x43, 0x49, 0x49, 0x21]);

For more information, see also AsciiEncoder and AsciiDecoder.

Latin-1

A Latin1Codec encodes strings to ISO Latin-1 (aka ISO-8859-1) bytes and decodes Latin-1 bytes to strings. Not all characters can be represented as Latin-1, so not all strings can be successfully converted.

The latin1 is the default implementation of Latin1Codec.

Example:

var encoded = latin1.encode('blåbærgrød');
var decoded = latin1.decode([0x62, 0x6c, 0xe5, 0x62, 0xe6,
                             0x72, 0x67, 0x72, 0xf8, 0x64]);

For more information, see also Latin1Encoder and Latin1Decoder.

Base64

A Base64Codec encodes bytes using the default base64 alphabet, decodes using both the base64 and base64url alphabets, does not allow invalid characters and requires padding.

The base64 is the default implementation of Base64Codec.

Example:

var encoded = base64.encode([0x62, 0x6c, 0xc3, 0xa5, 0x62, 0xc3, 0xa6,
                             0x72, 0x67, 0x72, 0xc3, 0xb8, 0x64]);
var decoded = base64.decode('YmzDpWLDpnJncsO4ZAo=');

For more information, see also Base64Encoder and Base64Decoder.

Converters

Converters are often used with streams to transform the data that comes through the stream as it becomes available. The following code uses two converters. The first is a UTF-8 decoder, which converts the data from bytes to UTF-8 as it is read from a file, The second is an instance of LineSplitter, which splits the data on newline boundaries.

const showLineNumbers = true;
var lineNumber = 1;
var stream = File('quotes.txt').openRead();

stream.transform(utf8.decoder)
      .transform(const LineSplitter())
      .forEach((line) {
        if (showLineNumbers) {
          stdout.write('${lineNumber++} ');
        }
        stdout.writeln(line);
      });

See the documentation for the Codec and Converter classes for information about creating your own converters.

HTML Escape

HtmlEscape converter escapes characters with special meaning in HTML. The converter finds characters that are significant in HTML source and replaces them with corresponding HTML entities.

Custom escape modes can be created using the HtmlEscapeMode.HtmlEscapeMode constructor.

Example:

const htmlEscapeMode = HtmlEscapeMode(
  name: 'custom',
  escapeLtGt: true,
  escapeQuot: false,
  escapeApos: false,
  escapeSlash: false,
 );

const HtmlEscape htmlEscape = HtmlEscape(htmlEscapeMode);
String unescaped = 'Text & subject';
String escaped = htmlEscape.convert(unescaped);
print(escaped); // Text & subject

unescaped = '10 > 1 and 1 < 10';
escaped = htmlEscape.convert(unescaped);
print(escaped); // 10 &gt; 1 and 1 &lt; 10

unescaped = "Single-quoted: 'text'";
escaped = htmlEscape.convert(unescaped);
print(escaped); // Single-quoted: 'text'

unescaped = 'Double-quoted: "text"';
escaped = htmlEscape.convert(unescaped);
print(escaped); // Double-quoted: "text"

unescaped = 'Path: /system/';
escaped = htmlEscape.convert(unescaped);
print(escaped); // Path: /system/