Serializable.hs

-- | Serialization support. This is mainly used for compatibility
-- with whatever serialization library you want to use.

module Data.CQRS.Serializable
    ( Serializable(..)
    ) where

import Data.ByteString (ByteString)

-- | Serialization support for values of type 'a'.
class Serializable a where
    -- | Serialize a value. The serialized representation
    -- should contain some metadata (a UUID for example)
    -- which can be used to check reliably whether the encoded
    -- representation is semantically valid upon decoding.
    serialize :: a -> ByteString
    -- | De-serialize a value from a byte string. Should return
    -- 'Nothing' if decoding is not possible due to a now-invalid
    -- representation.
    deserialize :: ByteString -> Maybe a