diff --git a/ASUnit/ASUnit.applescript b/ASUnit/ASUnit.applescript
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b03b1c8
Binary files /dev/null and b/ASUnit/ASUnit.applescript differ
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 5bf1d64..fc221ac 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -2,4 +2,5 @@ json.scpt: json.applescript
 	osacompile -o json.scpt json.applescript
 
 test: json.scpt
+	osacompile -o ASUnit/ASUnit.scpt -x ASUnit/ASUnit.applescript
 	osascript tests.applescript
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index afe454f..7ccdd15 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -47,3 +47,25 @@ set my_dict_2 to json's createDictWith({ {"foo", "bar"}, {"baz", 22} })
 json's encode(my_dict_2)
 -- {"foo": "bar", "baz": 22}
 ```
+
+And also natively (which gives a small performance penalty):
+```applescript
+json's encode({glossary:¬
+		{GlossDiv:¬
+			{GlossList:¬
+				{GlossEntry:¬
+					{GlossDef:¬
+						{GlossSeeAlso:¬
+							["GML", "XML"], para:"A meta-markup language, used to create markup languages such as DocBook."} ¬
+							, GlossSee:"markup", Acronym:"SGML", GlossTerm:"Standard Generalized Markup Language", Abbrev:"ISO 8879:1986", SortAs:"SGML", id:¬
+						"SGML"} ¬
+						}, title:"S"} ¬
+				, title:"example glossary"} ¬
+			})
+```
+
+Decoding is also available (dictionaries with keys which contain spaces are not supported):
+```applescript
+set dict to {foo:"bar"}
+json's decode(json's encode(dict)) -- {foo: "bar"}
+```
diff --git a/json.applescript b/json.applescript
index 3249de0..92c33b8 100644
--- a/json.applescript
+++ b/json.applescript
@@ -1,41 +1,191 @@
+on decodeWithDicts(value)
+	set value to replaceString(value, "\\", "\\\\")
+	set s to "import json, sys, codecs" & return
+	set s to s & "sys.stdin = codecs.getreader('utf8')(sys.stdin)" & return
+	set s to s & "def toAppleScript(pythonValue):" & return
+	set s to s & "    output = ''" & return
+	set s to s & "    if(pythonValue == None):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += 'null'" & return
+	set s to s & "    elif (isinstance(pythonValue, dict)):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += 'json\\'s createDictWith({'" & return
+	set s to s & "        first = True" & return
+	set s to s & "        for (key, value) in pythonValue.iteritems():" & return
+	set s to s & "            if first:" & return
+	set s to s & "                first = False" & return
+	set s to s & "            else:" & return
+	set s to s & "                output += ','" & return
+	set s to s & "            output += '{' + toAppleScript(key) + ',' " & return
+	set s to s & "            output += toAppleScript(value) + '}'" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '})'" & return
+	set s to s & "    elif (isinstance(pythonValue, list)):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '{'" & return
+	set s to s & "        first = True" & return
+	set s to s & "        for value in pythonValue:" & return
+	set s to s & "            if first:" & return
+	set s to s & "                first = False" & return
+	set s to s & "            else:" & return
+	set s to s & "                output += ','" & return
+	set s to s & "            output += toAppleScript(value)" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '}'" & return
+	set s to s & "    elif(isinstance(pythonValue, basestring)):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '\"' + pythonValue.replace('\"', '\\\\\"') + '\"'" & return
+	set s to s & "    else:" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += json.dumps(pythonValue)" & return
+	set s to s & "    return output" & return
+	-- sys.stdout to be able to write utf8 to our buffer
+	-- We can ignore newlines in JSON format freely, as our \n will convert into new lines in bash we will use the actual new lines as the string \n
+	set s to s & "sys.stdout.write(toAppleScript(json.loads(sys.stdin.read())).encode('utf8'))"
+	set value to replaceString(value, {return & linefeed, return, linefeed, character id 8233, character id 8232, character id 12, character id 9, character id 8}, "")
+	-- AppleScript translates new lines in old mac returns so we need to turn that off
+	set appleCode to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of value & " \"\\c\"  |python2.7 -c  " & quoted form of s without altering line endings
+	set appleCode to replaceString(replaceString(appleCode, "\\", "\\\\"), "\\\"", "\"")
+	set s to "on run {json}" & return
+	set s to s & appleCode & return
+	set s to s & "end"
+	return (run script s with parameters {me})
+end decodeWithDicts
+
+on decode(value)
+	set value to replaceString(value, "\\", "\\\\")
+	set s to "import json, sys, codecs" & return
+	set s to s & "sys.stdin = codecs.getreader('utf8')(sys.stdin)" & return
+	set s to s & "def toAppleScript(pythonValue):" & return
+	set s to s & "    output = ''" & return
+	set s to s & "    if(pythonValue == None):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += 'null'" & return
+	set s to s & "    elif (isinstance(pythonValue, dict)):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '{'" & return
+	set s to s & "        first = True" & return
+	set s to s & "        for (key, value) in pythonValue.iteritems():" & return
+	set s to s & "            if first:" & return
+	set s to s & "                first = False" & return
+	set s to s & "            else:" & return
+	set s to s & "                output += ','" & return
+	set s to s & "            output += key + ':' " & return
+	set s to s & "            output += toAppleScript(value)" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '}'" & return
+	set s to s & "    elif (isinstance(pythonValue, list)):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '{'" & return
+	set s to s & "        first = True" & return
+	set s to s & "        for value in pythonValue:" & return
+	set s to s & "            if first:" & return
+	set s to s & "                first = False" & return
+	set s to s & "            else:" & return
+	set s to s & "                output += ','" & return
+	set s to s & "            output += toAppleScript(value)" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '}'" & return
+	set s to s & "    elif(isinstance(pythonValue, basestring)):" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += '\"' + pythonValue.replace('\"', '\\\\\"') + '\"'" & return
+	set s to s & "    else:" & return
+	set s to s & "        output += json.dumps(pythonValue)" & return
+	set s to s & "    return output" & return
+	-- sys.stdout to be able to write utf8 to our buffer
+	-- We can ignore newlines in JSON format freely, as our \n will convert into new lines in bash we will use the actual new lines as the string \n
+	set s to s & "sys.stdout.write(toAppleScript(json.loads(sys.stdin.read())).encode('utf8'))"
+	set value to replaceString(value, {return & linefeed, return, linefeed, character id 8233, character id 8232, character id 12, character id 9, character id 8}, "")
+	-- AppleScript translates new lines in old mac returns so we need to turn that off
+	set appleCode to do shell script "echo " & quoted form of value & " \"\\c\"  |python2.7 -c  " & quoted form of s without altering line endings
+	set appleCode to replaceString(replaceString(appleCode, "\\", "\\\\"), "\\\"", "\"")
+	set s to "on run " & return
+	set s to s & appleCode & return
+	set s to s & "end"
+	return (run script s)
+end decode
+
 on encode(value)
 	set type to class of value
-	if type = integer
-		return value as text
-	else if type = text
+	if type = integer or type = real then
+		return replaceString(value as text, ",", ".")
+	else if type = text then
 		return encodeString(value)
-	else if type = list
+	else if type = list then
+		if isBigList(value) then
+			return encodeRecord(value)
+		else
+			return encodeList(value)
+		end if
+	else if type = script then
+		return value's toJson()
+	else if type = record then
+		return encodeRecord(value)
+	else if type = class and (value as text) = "null" then
+		return "null"
+	else
+		error "Unknown type " & type
+	end if
+end encode
+
+-- skips BigList check
+on _encode(value)
+	set type to class of value
+	if type = integer or type = real then
+		return replaceString(value as text, ",", ".")
+	else if type = text then
+		return encodeString(value)
+	else if type = list then
 		return encodeList(value)
-	else if type = script
+	else if type = script then
 		return value's toJson()
+	else if type = record then
+		return encodeRecord(value)
+	else if type = class and (value as text) = "null" then
+		return "null"
 	else
 		error "Unknown type " & type
-	end
-end
+	end if
+end _encode
 
+on isBigList(value)
+	repeat with element in value
+		set type to class of element
+		if type = list then
+			if isBigList(element) then
+				return true
+			end if
+		else if type = record then
+			return true
+		end if
+	end repeat
+	return false
+end isBigList
 
 on encodeList(value_list)
 	set out_list to {}
 	repeat with value in value_list
-		copy encode(value) to end of out_list
-	end
+		copy _encode(value) to end of out_list
+	end repeat
 	return "[" & join(out_list, ", ") & "]"
-end
+end encodeList
 
 
 on encodeString(value)
+	if (count of value) ³ 256 then -- Large string manipulations are slow in AppleScript
+		set s to "import json, sys, codecs" & return
+		set s to s & "sys.stdin = codecs.getreader('utf8')(sys.stdin)" & return
+		set s to s & "sys.stdout.write(json.dumps(sys.stdin.read()))"
+		return do shell script "echo " & quoted form of value & " \"\\c\" | python2.7 -c " & quoted form of s
+	end if
 	set rv to ""
 	repeat with ch in value
-		if id of ch >= 32 and id of ch < 127
+		if id of ch = 34 or id of ch = 92 then
+			set quoted_ch to "\\" & ch
+		else if id of ch ³ 32 and id of ch < 127 then
 			set quoted_ch to ch
-		else
+		else if id of ch < 65536 then
 			set quoted_ch to "\\u" & hex4(id of ch)
-		end
+		else
+			set v to id of ch
+			set v_ to v - 65536
+			set vh to v_ / 1024
+			set vl to v_ mod 1024
+			set w1 to 55296 + vh
+			set w2 to 56320 + vl
+			set quoted_ch to "\\u" & hex4(w1) & "\\u" & hex4(w2)
+		end if
 		set rv to rv & quoted_ch
-	end
+	end repeat
 	return "\"" & rv & "\""
-end
-
+end encodeString
 
 on join(value_list, delimiter)
 	set original_delimiter to AppleScript's text item delimiters
@@ -43,7 +193,16 @@ on join(value_list, delimiter)
 	set rv to value_list as text
 	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to original_delimiter
 	return rv
-end
+end join
+
+on replaceString(theText, oldString, newString)
+	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to oldString
+	set tempList to every text item of theText
+	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to newString
+	set theText to the tempList as string
+	set AppleScript's text item delimiters to ""
+	return theText
+end replaceString
 
 
 on hex4(n)
@@ -52,39 +211,140 @@ on hex4(n)
 	repeat until length of rv = 4
 		set digit to (n mod 16)
 		set n to (n - digit) / 16 as integer
-		set rv to (character (1+digit) of digit_list) & rv
-	end
+		set rv to (character (1 + digit) of digit_list) & rv
+	end repeat
 	return rv
-end
+end hex4
 
 
 on createDictWith(item_pairs)
 	set item_list to {}
-
-	script Dict
-		on setkv(key, value)
+	
+	script dict
+		on setValue(key, value)
+			set i to 1
+			set C to count item_list
+			repeat until i > C
+				set kv to item i of item_list
+				if item 1 of kv = key then
+					set item 2 of kv to value
+					set item i of item_list to kv
+					return
+				end if
+				set i to i + 1
+			end repeat
 			copy {key, value} to end of item_list
-		end
-
+		end setValue
+		
 		on toJson()
 			set item_strings to {}
 			repeat with kv in item_list
 				set key_str to encodeString(item 1 of kv)
 				set value_str to encode(item 2 of kv)
 				copy key_str & ": " & value_str to end of item_strings
-			end
+			end repeat
 			return "{" & join(item_strings, ", ") & "}"
-		end
-	end
-
+		end toJson
+		
+		on getValue(key)
+			repeat with kv in item_list
+				if item 1 of kv = key then
+					return item 2 of kv
+				end if
+			end repeat
+			error "No such key " & key & " found."
+		end getValue
+		
+		on toRecord()
+			return decode(toJson())
+		end toRecord
+	end script
+	
 	repeat with pair in item_pairs
-		Dict's setkv(item 1 of pair, item 2 of pair)
-	end
-
-	return Dict
-end
-
+		dict's setValue(item 1 of pair, item 2 of pair)
+	end repeat
+	
+	return dict
+end createDictWith
 
 on createDict()
 	return createDictWith({})
-end
+end createDict
+
+on recordToString(aRecord)
+	try
+		set type to class of aRecord
+		--This ensures applescript knows about the type
+		if class of aRecord = list then
+			set aRecord to aRecord as list
+		else
+			set aRecord to aRecord as record
+		end if
+		set aRecord to aRecord
+		set str to aRecord as text
+	on error errorMsg
+		set startindex to 1
+		set eos to length of errorMsg
+		repeat until startindex is eos
+			if character startindex of errorMsg = "{" then
+				exit repeat
+			end if
+			set startindex to startindex + 1
+		end repeat
+		set endindex to eos
+		repeat until endindex is 1
+			if character endindex of errorMsg = "}" then
+				exit repeat
+			end if
+			set endindex to endindex - 1
+		end repeat
+		set str to ((characters startindex thru endindex of errorMsg) as string)
+		if startindex < endindex then
+			return str
+		end if
+	end try
+	set oldClipboard to the clipboard
+	set the clipboard to {aRecord}
+	set str to (do shell script "osascript -s s -e 'the clipboard as record'")
+	set the clipboard to oldClipboard
+	set str to ((characters 8 thru -1 of str) as string)
+	set str to ((characters 1 thru -3 of str as string))
+	return str
+end recordToString
+
+on encodeRecord(value_record)
+	-- json can be used to escape a string for python
+	set strRepr to recordToString(value_record)
+	set strRepr to replaceString(strRepr, "\\\\", "\\\\\\\\")
+	set s to "import json, token, tokenize, sys, codecs" & return
+	set s to s & "from StringIO import StringIO" & return
+	set s to s & "sys.stdin = codecs.getreader('utf8')(sys.stdin)" & return
+	set s to s & "def appleScriptNotationToJSON (in_text):" & return
+	
+	set s to s & "    tokengen = tokenize.generate_tokens(StringIO(in_text).readline)" & return
+	set s to s & "    depth = 0" & return
+	set s to s & "    opstack = []" & return
+	set s to s & "    result = []" & return
+	set s to s & "    for tokid, tokval, _, _, _ in tokengen:" & return
+	set s to s & "        if (tokid == token.NAME):" & return
+	set s to s & "            if tokval not in ['true', 'false', 'null', '-Infinity', 'Infinity', 'NaN']:" & return
+	set s to s & "                tokid = token.STRING" & return
+	set s to s & "                tokval = u'\"%s\"' % tokval" & return
+	set s to s & "        elif (tokid == token.STRING):" & return
+	set s to s & "            if tokval.startswith (\"'\"):" & return
+	set s to s & "                tokval = u'\"%s\"' % tokval[1:-1]" & return
+	set s to s & "        elif (tokid == token.OP) and ((tokval == '}') or (tokval == ']')):" & return
+	set s to s & "            if (len(result) > 0) and (result[-1][1] == ','):" & return
+	set s to s & "                result.pop()" & return
+	set s to s & "            tokval = '}' if result[opstack[-1]][1] == '{' else ']'" & return
+	set s to s & "            opstack.pop()" & return
+	set s to s & "        elif (tokid == token.OP) and (tokval == '{' or tokval == ']'):" & return
+	set s to s & "            tokval = '['" & return
+	set s to s & "            opstack.append(len(result))" & return
+	set s to s & "        elif (tokid == token.OP) and (tokval == ':') and result[opstack[-1]][1] != '}':" & return
+	set s to s & "            result[opstack[-1]] = (result[opstack[-1]][0], '{')" & return
+	set s to s & "        result.append((tokid, tokval))" & return
+	set s to s & "    return tokenize.untokenize(result)" & return
+	set s to s & "print json.dumps(json.loads(appleScriptNotationToJSON(sys.stdin.read().replace(\"\\n\", \"\\\\n\").replace(\"\\b\", \"\\\\b\").replace(\"\\f\", \"\\\\f\").replace(\"\\t\", \"\\\\t\").replace(\"\\r\", \"\\\\r\"))))" & return
+	return (do shell script "echo " & quoted form of strRepr & "\"\\c\" | python2.7 -c " & quoted form of s)
+end encodeRecord
diff --git a/tests.applescript b/tests.applescript
index c3684e4..66b37e5 100644
Binary files a/tests.applescript and b/tests.applescript differ