Performance of object (Array) encoding :

[PaulBlanche]

Instead of a recursive approche for encoding/decoding which implies multiple calls to escape/unescape for nested values and ever-growing escaped strings, use another scheme

Encoding:

1. Walk the nested array as if flattend, encode each primitive value (= non-array value) and escape them.
2. Prefix the item with a K for each array opened directly before it, and suffix it with a ! for each array closed directly after it
3. Join all items with a "

encode(['a', [['b']]]) // KJa"KKJb!!!

Encoding is done in a single pass on all items of the nested array.

Decoding:

1. Split on ".
2. Walk the flat array, keeping track of opened/closed array (counting prefix Ks and suffix !s), and push the unescaped and decoded value at the appropriate depth of the nestedarray

decode('KJb"KJa!"KJb!!') // ['b',['a'],['b']]

Decoding is also done in a single pass on all items

I also reworked the benchmark to use process.hrtime (more precise than Date) and to allow benchmarking of deep nested array vs flat arrays.

[dominictarr]

this is great work! now both encoding and decoding is faster than bytewise. merging!

[dominictarr]

merged into 3.0.0