PODS 💾

Pack of Data
By Dmitry Mitrofanov (@pixeye)

What is it?

Easy to read and type text format for serialization and config files.

Why?

Json may be used on projects both for serialization tasks and for writing configuration files. Despite the obvious advantages of Json as a format (it's intuitive, more or less good for data serialization and widely spread), it's harder to read and edit than, for example, Toml/Yaml. Toml is easy to read, but it's not designed for serialization, and Yaml, subjectively, is a complex format. I wanted to make a format with 3 things in mind:

• easy to type and read
• can be used both for configs and serialization with different visual and syntax output but still based on the same set of grammar rules
• json-like as it's by far most widely used format and mostly everyone who know Json can use Pods

Examples 📗

Pods can be written in several formats: Dense, Sparse and Compact (relatively)
The properties can be nested and can represent hierarchical data. Sparse format:

(
  Alain = (
    name    = 'Alain'
    pos     = (x=5,y=10,z=0)
    power   = 90
    cost    = 10
    kind    = 'Mage'
    items   = [['book'='Homilies and Meditations']];
    friends = ['Roland','Cuthbert']
    dead    = true
  )
  Cuthbert = (
    name    = 'Cuthbert'
    pos     = (x=10,y=10,z=0)
    power   = 100
    cost    = 10
    kind    = 'Range'
    items   = [['necklace'='The Lookout','weapon1'='carver','weapon2'='slingshot']]
    friends = ['Roland','Alain']
    dead    = true
  )
  Roland = (
    name    = 'Roland'
    pos     = (x=12,y=10,z=5)
    power   = 150
    cost    = 20
    kind    = 'Melee'
    items   = [['pet'='David']]
    friends = ['Cuthbert','Alain','Susan']
    dead    = false
  )
)

Dense format:

(
# Unit A
  Alain.name = 'Alain';
  Alain.pos.x = 5;;
  Alain.pos.y = 10;;
  Alain.pos.z = 0;;
  Alain.power = 90;
  Alain.cost = 10;
  Alain.kind = 'Mage';
  Alain.items = [['book'='Homilies and Meditations']];
  Alain.friends = ['Roland','Cuthbert'];
  Alain.dead = true;
# Unit B
  Cuthbert.name = 'Cuthbert';
  Cuthbert.pos.x = 10;;
  Cuthbert.pos.y = 10;;
  Cuthbert.pos.z = 0;;
  Cuthbert.power = 100;
  Cuthbert.cost = 10;
  Cuthbert.kind = 'Range';
  Cuthbert.items = [['necklace'='The Lookout','weapon1'='carver','weapon2'='slingshot']];
  Cuthbert.friends = ['Roland','Alain'];
  Cuthbert.dead = true;
# Unit C
  Roland.name = 'Roland';
  Roland.pos.x = 12;;
  Roland.pos.y = 10;;
  Roland.pos.z = 5;;
  Roland.power = 150;
  Roland.cost = 20;
  Roland.kind = 'Melee';
  Roland.items = [['pet'='David']];
  Roland.friends = ['Cuthbert','Alain','Susan'];
  Roland.dead = false;
)

Also valid format:

(
  Alain
    .name = 'Alain';
    .pos.x = 5;;
    .pos.y = 10;;
    .pos.z = 0;;
    .power = 90;
    .cost = 10;
    .kind = 'Mage';
    .friends = ['Cuthbert','Roland'];
    .inventory = [['book'='Homilies and Meditations']];
    .dead = true;
)

Format rules 📘

Objects begin with . or ( and ends with ; or ) Arrays begin with [ and ends with ]
Tables begin with [[ and ends with ]]
Tables can take only string keys
Strins are quoted with '
Booleans false, true, on, off
Null null
Whitespaces , \t, \v, \r, \l, \f
End of line \l, \r
Comments #

Usage / Contribution 🦄

This is still mainly a personal project that I use to describe object definition or configurations in my game development routines. Though, potentially this format can be used everywhere. If you like the concept & idea than documentation, bug reports, pull requests or any other contributions are strongly welcome!

Implementations ⚙️

Currently, only Nim language implementation is awailable, as this is my daily language and I originally wrote PODS using it.

• Nim: https://github.com/PixeyeHQ/px.nim.pods