noon
v3.5.0
Published
no ordinary object notation
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Readme
noon
is an object notation with a focus on human readability.
Whitespace is preferred over other control characters:
- Indentation is used to express hierarchy
- Strings don't need to be escaped
- works well in config files
- works well in command line arguments
- good for storing regexp patterns
example files
format
hierarchy
is expressed by indentation with spaces
grandpa
parent
child
sibling
uncle
dictionaries
two or more spaces mark the end of a dictionary key, therefore ...
keys and list items can have single spaces in them but ...
unescaped dictionary keys can't contain consecutive spaces:
key 1 value 1
key 2 value 2 contains spaces
one key makes an object
this is
an object
the above as json: {"this is": null, "an": "object"}
while
this is
not an object
is equivalent to ["this is", "not an object"]
objects inside lists
are expressed like this:
.
a 1
.
b 2
the above as json: [{"a": 1}, {"b": 2}]
strings
escaping
if trimming your strings is not an option, you can escape:
a | leading spaces
b trailing spaces |
c | leading and trailing spaces |
pipe symbol |||
empty string ||
keys must be escaped from both ends:
| s pace | key keeps spaces
| | key consists of spaces
|| key is empty string
multiline strings
key ...
value is
a text with
line breaks
which stops
now
...
comments
# comments start with the hash sign
# mixing of data and comments is not allowed
therefore:
1 # this is not a comment
| # neither is this one
# but this one is
inline
sometimes data needs to be encoded in a single line.
dense notation
key . a .. b . c
is equivalent to
key
a
b
c
one line notation
:: represents a line break
no spaces in keys allowed, therefore ...
no two-space-seperation necessary:
key . a :: b . c :: d 1 :: e 2
is equivalent to
key
a
b
c
d 1
e 2
command line
module
noon = require 'noon'
# usage is similar to JSON
noon.stringify { hello: 'world' }
# hello world
noon.parse """
hello world
what's up? ☺
"""
# { hello: 'world', 'what\'s up?': '☺' }
stringify_options = # stringify's second argument, defaults are:
ext: 'noon' # output format: noon or json
indent: 4 # number of spaces per indent level
align: true # vertically align object values
maxalign: 32 # maximal number of spaces when aligning
sort: false # sort object keys alphabetically
circular: false # check for circular references (expensive!)
colors: false # colorize output with ansi colors
# load data from file
data = noon.load 'file.noon'
data = noon.load 'file.json'
# write data to file
noon.save 'file.noon', data
noon.save 'file.noon', data, stringify_options
noon.save 'file.json', data # < write as json
noon.save 'noext', data, ext: 'noon'
caveats
- keys can't start with the pipe symbol: |
- escaped keys can't contain the pipe symbol
- empty objects are not expressible
Don't use it if you can't live with the limitations mentioned above.