yoav-lavi/august

An Emmet-like language that produces JSON, TOML, or YAML

.august:true

August is an Emmet-like language that produces JSON, TOML, or YAML from a single-line concise selector-like syntax.

If you aren't familiar with Emmet, think of August as a snippet or shortcut to quickly typing or editing a document in any of the target languages.

August is currently in very early stages. The repository currently contains a CLI under crates/cli, which will soon be published in various forms. Editor extensions and a playground will be supported later on.

Please feel free to open issues with syntax suggestions / general suggestions if you want to become involved!

Features

• Values that are alphanumeric (may be expanded) do not need to be quoted
• Familiar JSON-like operators (., ,, :)
• Easy to type (close to the home row) operators (^ being the current exception, may change)
• Context aware: .true:true becomes { "true": true }
• Supports exiting a context (object or list) via ^ to the parent scope
• More document types can be added in the future
• Other features TBD!

Examples (syntax not final)

Prettier-esque

.semi:true,trailingComma:all,singleQuote:true,printwidth:120,tabwidth:2,ignored:.hello:world

JSON Output

{
  "ignored": {
    "hello": "world"
  },
  "tabwidth": "2",
  "trailingComma": "all",
  "singleQuote": "true",
  "semi": "true",
  "printwidth": "120"
}

TOML Output

tabwidth = "2"
trailingComma = "all"
singleQuote = "true"
semi = "true"
printwidth = "120"

[ignored]
hello = "world"

YAML Output

ignored:
  hello: world
tabwidth: '2'
trailingComma: all
singleQuote: 'true'
semi: 'true'
printwidth: '120'

Deeply Nested

.this:.is:.deeply:.nested:.indeed:.how:odd

JSON Output

{
  "this": {
    "is": {
      "deeply": {
        "nested": {
          "indeed": {
            "how": "odd"
          }
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

TOML Output

[this.is.deeply.nested.indeed]
how = "odd"

YAML Output

this:
  is:
    deeply:
      nested:
        indeed:
          how: odd

Syntax (current)

• . - opens a new object (similar to { in JSON)
• : - sets a value for a key
• > - opens a new list (similar to [ in JSON)
• ^ - climb up to the parent scope (object or list)
• identifier - an unquoted string, can be used for keys and values
• "this is my identifier" - a quoted string, can be used for keys and values
• true, false, null - similar to JSON counterparts
• \ - escapes a character within a quoted string (e.g. \")

CLI Usage (CLI command TBD)

ag -o / --output [OUTPUT] (json|toml|yaml) [INPUT]