Relase Status Prerelease (Please help by reviewing the specs and submitting issues!)
Humans love text. Machines love binary. With Concise Encoding, conversion is 1:1 and seamless.
Boolean, integer, float, string, bytes, time, URI, UUID, list, map, markup, metadata, and more!
No schema needed. No special syntax files. No code generation. Just import and go.
Today's data formats present us with a dilemma: Use text based formats that are bloated and slow, or use binary formats that humans can't read. Wouldn't it be nice to have the benefits of both, and none of the drawbacks?
Twin Formats
Edit Text, Transmit Binary
Encoded data should be easy to read, easy to edit, as well as low-cost to process and transmit.
Concise Encoding accomplishes this using 1:1 compatible twin formats: one in text, and one in binary.
Keep everything in binary while transmitting and storing on machines, then seamlessly convert to/from text only where a human needs to be involved.
Rich Type Support
All the types you need
Tired of coercing your data into strings? Concise Encoding supports these types natively:
All examples are valid Concise Text Encoding documents that can be transparently 1:1 converted to/from Concise Binary Encoding.
Numeric Types
c1
{
boolean = @true
binary-int = -0b10001011
octal-int = 0o644
decimal-int = -10000000
hex-int = 0xfffe0001
decimal-float = -14.125
hex-float = 0x5.1ec4p20
not-a-number = @nan
infinity = @inf
n-infinity = -@inf
}
Strings & String-Like
c1
{
unquoted-string = no_quotes_needed
quoted-string = "A string delimited by quotes"
verbatim-string = `# Like bash here docs. `"[!$%^&*{( are fine.#
url = u"https://example.com/"
email = u"mailto:me@somewhere.com"
}
Other Basic Types
c1
{
uuid = @f1ce4567-e89b-12d3-a456-426655440000
date = 2019-7-1
time = 18:04:00.940231541/E/Prague
timestamp = 2010-7-15/13:28:15.415942344/Z
nil = @nil
}
Containers & Arrays
c1
{
list = [1 2.5 "a string"]
map = {one=1 2=two today=2020-09-10}
bytes = |u8x 01 ff de ad be ef|
uint16-hex-array = |u16x 91fe 443a 9c15|
uint16-array = |u16 37374 17466 39957|
float32-array = |f32 1.5e10 -8.31e-12|
}
Markup
c1
{
main-view = <View;
<Image src=u"images/avatar-image.jpg">
<Text;
Hello!
>
<TextInput style={height=40 borderColor=gray}; Name me! >
>
}
References
c1
{
marked_object = &id1:{
description = "This map will be referenced later as $id1"
value = -@inf
child_elements = @nil
recursive = $id1
}
ref1 = $id1
ref2 = $id1
outside_ref = $u"https://xyz.com/document.cte#some_id"
}
Metadata & Comments
c1
// Metadata about the entire documents
(
// _ct is the creation time, _d is description, _v is version.
// See common generic metadata spec.
_ct = 2019-9-1/22:14:01
_d = "Some description"
_v = "1.1.0"
whatever = "some arbitrary data"
)
{
/* Comments look very C-like, except:
/* Nested comments are allowed! */
*/
// Double-slash comments are also possible.
(info = "something interesting about a_list")
a_list = [1 2 3]
}
Custom Types
c1
{
// Custom types are user-defined, with user-supplied codecs.
custom-text = t"cplx(2.94+3i)"
custom-binary = b"04f6283c4000004040"
}