Custom serializers and deserializers in MessageVerifier and MessageEncryptor.

By default, these classes use Marshal for serializing and deserializing messages. Unfortunately, the Marshal format is closely associated with Ruby internals and even changes between different interpreters. This makes the resulting message very hard to impossible to unserialize messages generated by these classes in other environments like node.js.

This patch solves this by allowing you to set your own custom serializer and deserializer lambda functions. By default, it still uses Marshal to be backwards compatible.

activesupport/lib/active_support/message_encryptor.rb

@@ -13,9 +13,13 @@ module ActiveSupport
     class InvalidMessage < StandardError; end
     OpenSSLCipherError = OpenSSL::Cipher.const_defined?(:CipherError) ? OpenSSL::Cipher::CipherError : OpenSSL::CipherError
 
+    attr_accessor :serializer, :deserializer
+
     def initialize(secret, cipher = 'aes-256-cbc')
       @secret = secret
       @cipher = cipher
+      @serializer = lambda { |value| Marshal.dump(value) }
+      @deserializer = lambda { |value| Marshal.load(value) }
     end
 
     def encrypt(value)
@@ -27,7 +31,7 @@ module ActiveSupport
       cipher.key = @secret
       cipher.iv  = iv
 
-      encrypted_data = cipher.update(Marshal.dump(value))
+      encrypted_data = cipher.update(serializer.call(value))
       encrypted_data << cipher.final
 
       [encrypted_data, iv].map {|v| ActiveSupport::Base64.encode64s(v)}.join("--")
@@ -44,7 +48,7 @@ module ActiveSupport
       decrypted_data = cipher.update(encrypted_data)
       decrypted_data << cipher.final
 
-      Marshal.load(decrypted_data)
+      deserializer.call(decrypted_data)
     rescue OpenSSLCipherError, TypeError
       raise InvalidMessage
     end

activesupport/lib/active_support/message_verifier.rb

@@ -21,9 +21,13 @@ module ActiveSupport
   class MessageVerifier
     class InvalidSignature < StandardError; end
 
+    attr_accessor :serializer, :deserializer
+    
     def initialize(secret, digest = 'SHA1')
       @secret = secret
       @digest = digest
+      @serializer = lambda { |value| Marshal.dump(value) }
+      @deserializer = lambda { |value| Marshal.load(value) }
     end
 
     def verify(signed_message)
@@ -31,14 +35,14 @@ module ActiveSupport
 
       data, digest = signed_message.split("--")
       if data.present? && digest.present? && secure_compare(digest, generate_digest(data))
-        Marshal.load(ActiveSupport::Base64.decode64(data))
+        deserializer.call(ActiveSupport::Base64.decode64(data))
       else
         raise InvalidSignature
       end
     end
 
     def generate(value)
-      data = ActiveSupport::Base64.encode64s(Marshal.dump(value))
+      data = ActiveSupport::Base64.encode64s(serializer.call(value))
       "#{data}--#{generate_digest(data)}"
     end
 

activesupport/test/message_encryptor_test.rb

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ rescue LoadError, NameError
 else
 
 require 'active_support/time'
+require 'active_support/json'
 
 class MessageEncryptorTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
   def setup
@@ -38,7 +39,14 @@ class MessageEncryptorTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     message = @encryptor.encrypt_and_sign(@data)
     assert_equal @data, @encryptor.decrypt_and_verify(message)
   end
-
+  
+  def test_alternative_serialization_method
+    @encryptor.serializer = lambda { |value| ActiveSupport::JSON.encode(value) }
+    @encryptor.deserializer = lambda { |value| ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(value) }
+    
+    message = @encryptor.encrypt_and_sign({ :foo => 123, 'bar' => Time.local(2010) })
+    assert_equal @encryptor.decrypt_and_verify(message), { "foo" => 123, "bar" => "2010-01-01T00:00:00-05:00" }
+  end
 
   private
     def assert_not_decrypted(value)

activesupport/test/message_verifier_test.rb

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ rescue LoadError, NameError
 else
 
 require 'active_support/time'
+require 'active_support/json'
 
 class MessageVerifierTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
   def setup
@@ -31,6 +32,14 @@ class MessageVerifierTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     assert_not_verified("#{data}--#{hash.reverse}")
     assert_not_verified("purejunk")
   end
+  
+  def test_alternative_serialization_method
+    @verifier.serializer = lambda { |value| ActiveSupport::JSON.encode(value) }
+    @verifier.deserializer = lambda { |value| ActiveSupport::JSON.decode(value) }
+    
+    message = @verifier.generate({ :foo => 123, 'bar' => Time.local(2010) })
+    assert_equal @verifier.verify(message), { "foo" => 123, "bar" => "2010-01-01T00:00:00-05:00" }
+  end
 
   def assert_not_verified(message)
     assert_raise(ActiveSupport::MessageVerifier::InvalidSignature) do