BSON is a binary format in which zero or more ordered key/value pairs are stored as a single entity. We call this entity a document.
The following grammar specifies version 1.1 of the
BSON standard. We've written the grammar using a
pseudo-BNF
syntax. Valid BSON data is represented by
the document non-terminal.
The following basic types are used as terminals in the rest of the grammar. Each type must be serialized in little-endian format.
| byte | 1 byte (8-bits) |
| int32 | 4 bytes (32-bit signed integer, two's complement) |
| int64 | 8 bytes (64-bit signed integer, two's complement) |
| uint64 | 8 bytes (64-bit unsigned integer) |
| double | 8 bytes (64-bit IEEE 754-2008 binary floating point) |
| decimal128 | 16 bytes (128-bit IEEE 754-2008 decimal floating point) |
The following specifies the rest of the BSON
grammar. Note that quoted strings represent terminals,
and should be interpreted with C semantics
(e.g. "\x01" represents the byte 0000
0001). Also note that we use the *
operator as shorthand for repetition
(e.g. ("\x01"*2)
is "\x01\x01"). When used as a unary
operator, * means that the repetition can
occur 0 or more times.
| document | ::= | int32 e_list "\x00" | BSON Document. int32 is the total number of bytes comprising the document. |
| e_list | ::= | element e_list | |
| | | "" | ||
| element | ::= | "\x01" e_name double | 64-bit binary floating point |
| | | "\x02" e_name string | UTF-8 string | |
| | | "\x03" e_name document | Embedded document | |
| | | "\x04" e_name document | Array | |
| | | "\x05" e_name binary | Binary data | |
| | | "\x06" e_name | Undefined (value) — Deprecated | |
| | | "\x07" e_name (byte*12) | ObjectId | |
| | | "\x08" e_name "\x00" | Boolean "false" | |
| | | "\x08" e_name "\x01" | Boolean "true" | |
| | | "\x09" e_name int64 | UTC datetime | |
| | | "\x0A" e_name | Null value | |
| | | "\x0B" e_name cstring cstring | Regular expression - The first cstring is the regex pattern, the second is the regex options string. Options are identified by characters, which must be stored in alphabetical order. Valid options are 'i' for case insensitive matching, 'm' for multiline matching, 'x' for verbose mode, 'l' to make \w, \W, etc. locale dependent, 's' for dotall mode ('.' matches everything), and 'u' to make \w, \W, etc. match unicode. | |
| | | "\x0C" e_name string (byte*12) | DBPointer — Deprecated | |
| | | "\x0D" e_name string | JavaScript code | |
| | | "\x0E" e_name string | Symbol. — Deprecated | |
| | | "\x0F" e_name code_w_s | JavaScript code w/ scope — Deprecated | |
| | | "\x10" e_name int32 | 32-bit integer | |
| | | "\x11" e_name uint64 | Timestamp | |
| | | "\x12" e_name int64 | 64-bit integer | |
| | | "\x13" e_name decimal128 | 128-bit decimal floating point | |
| | | "\xFF" e_name | Min key | |
| | | "\x7F" e_name | Max key | |
| e_name | ::= | cstring | Key name |
| string | ::= | int32 (byte*) "\x00" | String - The int32 is the number bytes in the (byte*) + 1 (for the trailing '\x00'). The (byte*) is zero or more UTF-8 encoded characters. |
| cstring | ::= | (byte*) "\x00" | Zero or more modified UTF-8 encoded characters followed by '\x00'. The (byte*) MUST NOT contain '\x00', hence it is not full UTF-8. |
| binary | ::= | int32 subtype (byte*) | Binary - The int32 is the number of bytes in the (byte*). |
| subtype | ::= | "\x00" | Generic binary subtype |
| | | "\x01" | Function | |
| | | "\x02" | Binary (Old) | |
| | | "\x03" | UUID (Old) | |
| | | "\x04" | UUID | |
| | | "\x05" | MD5 | |
| | | "\x06" | Encrypted BSON value | |
| | | "\x07" | Compressed BSON column | |
| | | "\x80" | User defined | |
| code_w_s | ::= | int32 string document | Code w/ scope — Deprecated |