kotlinx.serialization/docs/value-classes.md

# Serialization and value classes (IR-specific)

This appendix describes how value classes are handled by kotlinx.serialization.

> Features described are available on JVM/IR (enabled by default), JS/IR and Native backends.

**Table of contents**

<!--- TOC -->

* [Serializable value classes](#serializable-value-classes)
* [Unsigned types support (JSON only)](#unsigned-types-support-json-only)
* [Using value classes in your custom serializers](#using-value-classes-in-your-custom-serializers)

<!--- END -->

## Serializable value classes

We can mark value class as serializable:

```kotlin
@Serializable
@JvmInline
value class Color(val rgb: Int)
```

Value class in Kotlin is stored as its underlying type when possible (i.e. no boxing is required).
Serialization framework does not impose any additional restrictions and uses the underlying type where possible as well.

```kotlin
@Serializable
data class NamedColor(val color: Color, val name: String)

fun main() {
  println(Json.encodeToString(NamedColor(Color(0), "black")))
}
```

In this example, `NamedColor` is serialized as two primitives: `color: Int` and `name: String` without an allocation
of `Color` class. When we run the example, encoding data with JSON format, we get the following
output:

```text
{"color": 0, "name": "black"}
```

As we see, `Color` class is not included during the encoding, only its underlying data. This invariant holds even if the actual value class
is [allocated](https://kotlinlang.org/docs/reference/inline-classes.html#representation) — for example, when value
class is used as a generic type argument:

```kotlin
@Serializable
class Palette(val colors: List<Color>)

fun main() {
  println(Json.encodeToString(Palette(listOf(Color(0), Color(255), Color(128)))))
}
```

The snippet produces the following output:

```text
{"colors":[0, 255, 128]}
```

## Unsigned types support (JSON only)

Kotlin standard library provides ready-to-use unsigned arithmetics, leveraging value classes
to represent unsigned types: `UByte`, `UShort`, `UInt` and `ULong`.
[Json] format has built-in support for them: these types are serialized as theirs string
representations in unsigned form.
These types are handled as regular serializable types by the compiler plugin and can be freely used in serializable classes:

```kotlin
@Serializable
class Counter(val counted: UByte, val description: String)

fun main() {
    val counted = 239.toUByte()
    println(Json.encodeToString(Counter(counted, "tries")))
}
```

The output is following:

```text
{"counted":239,"description":"tries"}
```

> Unsigned types are currently supported only in JSON format. Other formats such as ProtoBuf and CBOR
> use built-in serializers that use an underlying signed representation for unsigned types.

## Using value classes in your custom serializers

Let's return to our `NamedColor` example and try to write a custom serializer for it. Normally, as shown
in [Hand-written composite serializer](serializers.md#hand-written-composite-serializer), we would write the following code
in `serialize` method:

```kotlin
override fun serialize(encoder: Encoder, value: NamedColor) {
  encoder.encodeStructure(descriptor) {
    encodeSerializableElement(descriptor, 0, Color.serializer(), value.color)
    encodeStringElement(descriptor, 1, value.name)
  }
}
```

However, since `Color` is used as a type argument in [encodeSerializableElement][CompositeEncoder.encodeSerializableElement] function, `value.color` will be boxed
to `Color` wrapper before passing it to the function, preventing the value class optimization. To avoid this, we can use
special [encodeInlineElement][CompositeEncoder.encodeInlineElement] function instead. It uses [serial descriptor][SerialDescriptor] of `Color` ([retrieved][SerialDescriptor.getElementDescriptor] from serial descriptor of `NamedColor`) instead of [KSerializer],
does not have type parameters and does not accept any values. Instead, it returns [Encoder]. Using it, we can encode
unboxed value:

```kotlin
override fun serialize(encoder: Encoder, value: NamedColor) {
  encoder.encodeStructure(descriptor) {
    encodeInlineElement(descriptor, 0).encodeInt(value.color)
    encodeStringElement(descriptor, 1, value.name)
  }
}
```

The same principle goes also with [CompositeDecoder]: it has [decodeInlineElement][CompositeDecoder.decodeInlineElement] function that returns [Decoder].

If your class should be represented as a primitive (as shown in [Primitive serializer](serializers.md#primitive-serializer) section),
and you cannot use [encodeStructure][Encoder.encodeStructure] function, there is a complementary function in [Encoder] called [encodeInline][Encoder.encodeInline].
We will use it to show an example how one can represent a class as an unsigned integer.

Let's start with a UID class:

```kotlin
@Serializable(UIDSerializer::class)
class UID(val uid: Int)
```

`uid` type is `Int`, but suppose we want it to be an unsigned integer in JSON. We can start writing the
following custom serializer:

```kotlin
object UIDSerializer: KSerializer<UID> {
  override val descriptor = UInt.serializer().descriptor
}
```

Note that we are using here descriptor from `UInt.serializer()` — it means that the class' representation looks like a
UInt's one.

Then the `serialize` method:

```kotlin
override fun serialize(encoder: Encoder, value: UID) {
  encoder.encodeInline(descriptor).encodeInt(value.uid)
}
```

That's where the magic happens — despite we called a regular [encodeInt][Encoder.encodeInt] with a `uid: Int` argument, the output will contain
an unsigned int because of the special encoder from `encodeInline` function. Since JSON format supports unsigned integers, it
recognizes theirs descriptors when they're passed into `encodeInline` and handles consecutive calls as for unsigned integers.

The `deserialize` method looks symmetrically:

```kotlin
override fun deserialize(decoder: Decoder): UID {
  return UID(decoder.decodeInline(descriptor).decodeInt())
}
```

> Disclaimer: You can also write such a serializer for value class itself (imagine UID being the value class — there's no need to change anything in the serializer).
> However, do not use anything in custom serializers for value classes besides `encodeInline`. As we discussed, calls to value class serializer may be
> optimized and replaced with a `encodeInlineElement` calls.
> `encodeInline` and `encodeInlineElement` calls with the same descriptor are considered equivalent and can be replaced with each other — formats should return the same `Encoder`.
> If you embed custom logic in custom value class serializer, you may get different results depending on whether this serializer was called at all
> (and this, in turn, depends on whether value class was boxed or not).

---

<!--- MODULE /kotlinx-serialization-core -->
<!--- INDEX kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization -->

[KSerializer]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization/-k-serializer/index.html

<!--- INDEX kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding -->

[CompositeEncoder.encodeSerializableElement]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-composite-encoder/encode-serializable-element.html
[CompositeEncoder.encodeInlineElement]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-composite-encoder/encode-inline-element.html
[Encoder]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-encoder/index.html
[CompositeDecoder]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-composite-decoder/index.html
[CompositeDecoder.decodeInlineElement]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-composite-decoder/decode-inline-element.html
[Decoder]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-decoder/index.html
[Encoder.encodeStructure]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/encode-structure.html
[Encoder.encodeInline]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-encoder/encode-inline.html
[Encoder.encodeInt]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.encoding/-encoder/encode-int.html

<!--- INDEX kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.descriptors -->

[SerialDescriptor]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.descriptors/-serial-descriptor/index.html
[SerialDescriptor.getElementDescriptor]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-core/kotlinx.serialization.descriptors/-serial-descriptor/get-element-descriptor.html

<!--- MODULE /kotlinx-serialization-json -->
<!--- INDEX kotlinx-serialization-json/kotlinx.serialization.json -->

[Json]: https://kotlinlang.org/api/kotlinx.serialization/kotlinx-serialization-json/kotlinx.serialization.json/-json/index.html

<!--- END -->