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Plan serialization specification

Plans must be serializable to a data format containing the following information:

• motionFamily: String
• name: String
• properties: Dictionary

Identifying the plan: A combination of namespace and name allows the runtime to uniquely identify a plan in a given system.

serialize/deserialize API: Provide APIs for serializing and deserializing a plan.

Example pseudo-code:

# Serialize the plan
data = plan.serialize()

# Create a new plan from data
plan = Plan(data)

A serialized plan is represented as a stream of bytes. These bytes can represent any format.

Payload contents: Plans can choose any format for their payload.

Plans must consider how they will handle future changes to their payload format.

Examples

The following example serializes a specific Tween plan:

let fadeIn = Tween(keyPath: "opacity")
fadeIn.from = 0
fadeIn.to = 1
fadeIn.curve = .easeIn

data = Serializer.toBinary(fadeIn)
{
  namespace: "Tween",
  name: "Tween",
  payload: {
    keyPath: "opacity"
    from: 0,
    to: 1
    curve: "easeIn"
  }
}

The following example serializes a more abstract FadeIn compositional plan:

let fadeIn = FadeIn()

data = Serializer.toBinary(fadeIn)
{
  namespace: "Tween",
  name: "FadeIn",
  payload: {}
}