Swim Structure Library

The Swim Structure library implements a generic structured data model that is compatible with JSON, XML, and other data languages. Swim structures have first class support for XPath/JSONPath-style selectors, as well as operator syntax trees, and lambda functions.

Overview

Think of Swim structures as a generic abstract syntax tree that can represent many structured data models, including parsed JSON, parsed XML, parsed Recon, parsed Protocol Buffers, and more. In addition to structured data models, Swim structures have generic syntax trees for selector languages, like XPath, JSONPath, and Recon selectors. Swim structures also provide generic syntax trees for algebraic, logical, bitwise, and function invocation operators, as well as syntax trees for lambda function definitions. An Interpreter is provided for evaluating selectors, operators, and function invocations.

Parsers from source languages to Swim structures are provided by separate packages. The Swim Recon library implements a parser and serializer for Recon, Recon selectors, and Recon expressions.

Data Model

The heart of Swim structures is a uniform structured data model. Swim uses an abstract data model to decouple itself from the irregularities and limitations of common data formats, such as JSON or XML.

To illuminate the complexity and limitations that Swim structures were designed to solve, let's first consider the data models of JSON and XML.

JSON's data model consists of four primitive types: string, number, boolean, and null; and two composite types: object, and array. Note that because JSON has two distinct composite types, its data model doesn't produce uniform tree structures. JSON also lacks a consistent way to disambiguate polymorphic structures. And JSON's lack of expressiveness leads to frequent use of textual microformats, which require additional parsing steps.

XML's data model consists of one quasi-primitive type: text nodes, which may internally compose out-of-band entity references; and one composite type: element. Note that XML does not produce uniform tree structures either, due to the fact that elements have both child nodes, and associated attributes. And because of its textual nature, XML leads to profuse use of ad hoc string microformats. Rather than natively implemented a structured type system, XML layers on various nominally typed schema languages.

Swim structures implement a uniform tree data model that is a superset of both the JSON and XML data models. The Swim structured data model has six primitive types: data, text, num, bool, extant, and absent; two field types: attr, and slot; and a single composite type: record.

Having only one composite type allows every compound data structure to be treated as a uniform tree. The record type effectively behaves like a partially-keyed list, enabling it to model both objects and arrays. The attr field type provides a consistent polymorphic disambiguation mechanism, similar to—but more uniform and expressive than—XML tags. The slot field type models object properties as distinct child items that happen to have a key. But unlike JSON object keys, slot keys are not restricted to string values.

Structures

At the root of the Swim structures type hierarchy is the Item class, which defines an algebraic data type for representing and manipulating structured data. Item provides many methods for operating on structured values, most of which are closed over the Item type, meaning they always return other instances of Item. This closure of operations over the Item type make it safe and expressive to traverse, transform, and convert arbitrary data structures, without excessive conditional logic to type check and validate structures obtained from external sources.

Every Item is either a Field or a Value. Every Field is either an Attr or a Slot. And every Value is either a Record, Data, Text, Num, Bool, Extant, or Absent. Think of Item as analogous to the set of all JSON values, with the inclusion of object fields as first class elements.

A Field represents a key-value pair, where both the key and value are of type Value. An Attr is a discriminated kind of Field whose key is always of type Text. Every Field that is not explicitly an Attr is a Slot. Think of a Slot as a field of a JSON object, or as an attribute of an XML tag. Think of an Attr like an XML tag, where the key of the Attr is the tag name, and the value of the Attr is a Record containing the element's attributes.

Every Item that is not a Field is a Value. A Value can either be one of four primitive value types: Data, Text, Num, or Bool; one of two unit types: Extant, or Absent; or the composite type: Record. Think of a Value as representing an arbitrary data structure.

A Data object represents opaque binary data; it wraps a JavaScript Uint8Array. A Text object represents a Unicode string, and wraps a primitive JavaScript string. A Num object represents a numeric value, encapsulating a primitive JavaScript number. A Bool object represents a boolean value, wrapping a primitive JavaScript boolean.

There are two unit types: Extant, and Absent. Extant represents a thing that exists, but has no value; sort of like JavaScript's null value, but a valid object on which you can invoke methods. Absent represents something that does not exist; similar to JavaScript's undefined value, but a valid instance of Item.

A Record is a simple container of Item members, and is the only composite structure type. A Record containing only Field members is analogous to a JSON object—though unlike JSON, its keys are not restricted to strings. A Record containing only Value members is similar to a JSON array. A Record with a leading Attr bears resemblance to an XML element. And a Record with a mixture of Field and Value members acts like a partially keyed list.

Expressions

Beyond representing static data structures, Swim structures can also model dynamic data structures, expressed using Selector, Operator, and Func extensions to the structured Value type. All dynamic values extend the abstract Expression class. Expression trees treat code as just another data type.

Invoking the evaluate method of any Item returns a new Item with all nested expressions interpreted in lexical order and scope. The substitute method partially evaluates an Item, interpreting only the sub-expressions that contain no unresolveable selectors.

The Swim Dataflow library implements a compiler from Swim structure expressions to live-updated structures that automatically recompute themselves when any transitively dependent selector changes.

Selectors

A Selector is an Expression that defines a filter function, which, given a selection scope, evaluates to some subset of items contained in that scope. Each Selector represents a filter operation, followed by a subselection, defined by a chained then Selector. A Selector expression thus consists of a sequence of filter steps, terminating with the identity selector.

The following Selector expressions are supported:

• IdentitySelector – selects the selection scope.
• GetSelector – selects the Value associated with some key for each Field in the selection scope.
• GetAttrSelector – selects the Value associated with some key for each Attr in the selection scope.
• GetItemSelector – selects the Item at some index of each Record in the selection scope.
• KeysSelector – selects the key of each Field in the selection scope.
• ValuesSelector – selects the value of each Field in the selection scope, as well as each Value in the selection scope.
• ChildrenSelector – selects the members of each Record in the selection scope.
• DescendantsSelector – recursively selects the members of each Record in the selection scope.
• FilterSelector – selects each Item in the selection scope for which some expression, evaluated in the current selection scope, returns a truthy value.
• LiteralSelector – selects the result of some expression, evaluated in the current selection scope.

Operators

An Operator is an Expression that performs an arithmetic, logical, bitwise, or comparison operation on its operand expressions. An Operator expression evaluates to Absent when its operands cannot be coerced to a suitable type. The following Operator expressions are provided:

• ConditionalOperator – ternary operator that evaluates its ifTerm, and if truthy, evaluates its thenTerm, and if falsey, evaluates its elseTerm.
• OrOperator – binary operator that evaluates its first operand, and if falsy, evaluates its second oprand.
• AndOperator – binary operator that evaluates its first operand, and if truthy, evaluates its second operand.
• BitwiseOrOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the bitwise inclusive OR of its integer operands.
• BitwiseXorOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the bitwise exclusive OR of its integer operands.
• BitwiseAndOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the bitwise AND of its integer operands.
• LtOperator – binary operator that evaluates to true if its first operand is strictly less than its second operand, and otherwise evaluates to Absent.
• LeOperator – binary operator that evaluates to true if its first operand is less than or equal to its second operand, and otherwise evaluates to Absent.
• EqOperator – binary operator that evaluates to true if its first operand is structurally equal to its second operand, and otherwise evaluates to Absent.
• NeOperator – binary operator that evaluates to true if its first operand is not structurally equal to its second operand, and otherwise evaluates to Absent.
• GeOperator – binary operator that evaluates to true if its first operand is greater than or equal to its second operand, and otherwise evaluates to Absent.
• GtOperator – binary operator that evaluates to true if its first operand is strictly greater than its second operand, and otherwise evaluates to Absent.
• PlusOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the sum of its numeric operands.
• MinusOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the difference of its numeric operands.
• TimesOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the product of its numeric operands.
• DivideOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the division of its numeric operands.
• ModuloOperator – binary operator that evaluates to the modulus of its numeric operands.
• NotOperator – unary operator that evaluates to the logical negation of its operand.
• BitwiseNotOperator – unary operator that evaluates to the bitwise complement of its integer operand.
• NegativeOperator – unary operator that evaluates to the negation of its numeric operand.
• PositiveOperator – unary operator that evaluates to its numeric operand.
• InvokeOperator – operator that invokes its evaluates func operand with its unevaluated args operand.

Functions

A Func is an Expression with an invoke method that takes an argument Value, an Interpreter, and an optional InvokeOperator, and returns an Item. A Func may take a Record as its argument in order to support multiple parameters. A Func is usually invoked with unevaluated arguments; a Func can choose to eagerly evaluate its arguments, or to operate like a macro on the syntax trees of its arguments.

The following builtin Func types are implementated:

• LambdaFunc – an anonymouse function that, when invoked, evaluates its template expression with its bindings identifiers in scope and bound to its eagerly evaluated arguments.
• BridgeFunc – a function implemented in JavaScript.

Interpreters

An Interpreter is the context in which an Expression is evaluated. It maintains a stack of lexical selection scopes, observes all evaluation steps, and enforces execution limits.

Forms

A Form defines a conversion between a structural type, and some nominal JavaScript type. The mold method converts a nominal JavaScript type to an Item. And the cast method converts an Item to a nominal JavaScript type, if possible.

The unit method optionally returns a default value for the nominal JavaScript type. The tag method optionally returns a discriminating Attr key string, which, if defined, can be used to optimize polymorphic cast operations.

The Swim Structure library implements standard forms for builtin JavaScript types.