jsn is a user-friendly data format that can be reliably edited by humans, addressing some of the common mistakes that occur when using json.
It adds features such as inheritence, variables, includes and syntax improvements to make jsn files more compact and re-usable than a json counterpart, it is an ideal solution for multi-platform build configuration, packaging and content buidling pipelines.
jsn can be used directly in python as a dictionary, or it can be converted to json to be used with other languages and tools and libraries which have json support.
If you are using hand edited json in any projects currently, jsn will easily integrate into your existing workflow and improve efficiency and reliability.
- Includes / file import.
- Inheritance (hierarchicle and multiple).
- Environment style scoped variables.
- Quoteless keys.
- Quoteless strings.
- Single quotes.
- Single and multi-line comments.
- Multi-line strings / line breaks.
- Hex, binary, bit shifts, int and float improvements.
You can convert jsn to json using the commandline, clone this repository and add jsn to your path.
jsn -i example.jsn -o example.json -I import_dir
jsn -help
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jsn ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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commandline arguments:
-help display this message
-i list of input files or directories to process
-o output file or directory
-I list of import directories, to search for imports
-p print output to console
Install via pip:
python3 -m pip install jsn
Or alternatively copy jsn.py where you need it.
jsn can be used just like json as a python dictionary.
import jsn
json_dict = jsn.loads(open("jsn_file.jsn", "r").read())import import.jsn
import test.jsn
{
// sytax highlights quite nicely in most editors with c or c syntax
// allow comments
/*
multi-
line
comments
*/
// tabs and any whitespace allowed
// compatible with json
"json":
{
"bool": true,
"int": 1,
"float": 1.0,
"string": "yes",
"array": [1, 2, 3]
},
// compatible with json5
json5:
{
unquoted: 'and you can quote me on that',
single_quotes: 'I can use "double quotes" here',
hexadecimal: 0xdecaf,
line_breaks: "Look, Mom! No \
\\n's!",
leading_decimal_point: .8675309, and_trailing: 8675309.,
positive_sign: 1,
trailing_comma: 'in objects', and_in: ['arrays',],
},
// jsn features
jsn:
{
unquoted_string: without_whitespace, // cannot contain whitespace or special chars (see str_test)
unquoted: [strings, in, arrays],
binary_literal: 0b10011,
bit_shifts: 1<<16 | 1<<8,
// you can define variables to be re-used
jsn_vars:
{
data: "path/to/data",
var_str: "hello",
var_int: 10
},
// evaluate variables with ${} inside quotes..
variable_data_path: "${data}/subdir",
variable_int: "${var_int}",
array_of_vars: ["${data}", "${var_str}"],
// inheritance below..
base: "foo",
sub_object:
{
one: "1",
two: "2",
nested_var: "${var_int}", // variable comes from outer scope.
}, // allow trailing commas
// use <windows, mac, linux> in angled brackets to conditionally include or exclude keys
// the platform specific keys will be merged into the base key if one exists
platform:
{
base: "exists"
},
// useful for selecting platform specific paths and executables
platform<windows>:
{
exe: "path/windows/program.exe"
},
platform<mac>:
{
exe: "path/mac/program"
}
},
inheritence(jsn): // add object name to inherit inside parenthesis
{
// inheritance adds keys from jsn object
// ..
// duplicated keys are overridden by the derived object
base: "bar",
// inheritance on sub-objects continues recursively
sub_object:
{
three: "3"
//..
}
},
// multiple and hierarchical inheritance
objb: { b: "b" },
multiple_inheritence(inheritence, objb):
{
// vars can also be shadowed / overriden..
jsn_vars:
{
data: "another/path/to/data",
var_int: 22
},
c: "c"
},
xxx:
{
// some test cases
empty_object: {},
empty_array: [],
array_of_objects:[
{object: 1, other: "value"},
{object: 2, other: "value"}
],
array_with_string_commas:[
"test,2",
"test,3"
],
nested_objects:
{
yes: true,
and:
{
deeper: nesting
}
},
multi_type_arrays:[
1,
[2, 3]
],
array_of_arrays:[
[hello, world],
[goodbye, world]
],
array_of_values:[
255,
0b11111111,
0xff,
1 << 1,
1 << 2 | 1,
1 << 2 | 1,
.255
],
jsn_vars:
{
va: "path/to/data",
vb: "hello",
},
array_of_array_vars: [
["${va}", "${vb}"],
["${vb}", "non var"]
],
multiple_vars: "${va}/${vb}.bin",
q1: "small 'quotes' inside",
q2: 'double "quotes" inside',
q3: "double escaped \"quotes\" inside"
},
//**
str_test: ":[{}]' .,0b0x" // this tests ignoring special chars inside quotes
}