RON is a simple readable data serialization format that looks like Rust. It's designed to support structs, enums, tuples, arrays, generic maps, and primitive values.
json
{
"materials": {
"metal": {
"reflectivity": 1.0
},
"plastic": {
"reflectivity": 0.5
}
},
"entities": [
{
"name": "hero",
"material": "metal"
},
{
"name": "moster",
"material": "plastic"
}
]
}
Notice these issues: 1. Struct and maps are the same - random order of exported fields - annoying and inconvenient for reading - doesn't work well with version control - quoted field names - too verbose - no support for enums 2. No trailing comma allowed 3. No comments allowed
rust
Scene( // class name is optional
materials: { // this is a map
"metal": (
reflectivity: 1.0,
),
"plastic": (
reflectivity: 0.5,
),
},
entities: [ // this is an array
(
name: "hero",
material: "metal",
),
(
name: "monster",
material: "plastic",
),
],
)
The new format uses (..) brackets for heterogeneous structures (classes), while preserving the {..} for maps, and [..] for homogeneous structures (arrays). This distinction allows to solve the biggest problem with JSON.
Here are the general rules to parse the heterogeneous structures:
| class is named? | fields are named? | what is it? | example |
| --------------- | ------------------| ------------------------- | ----------------- |
| no | no | tuple / tuple struct | (a, b) |
| yes | no | enum value / tuple struct | Name(a, b) |
| yes/no | yes | struct | (f1: a, f2: b) |
``` element: struct array map constant
constant: string number boolean
map:
{ key1: value1, key2: value2, ... }
// where all keys are constants of the same type
// and all values are elements of the same type
array:
[ elem1, elem2, ... ]
// where all elements are of the same type
struct:
[Name] ( field1: elem1, field2: elem2, ... )
```
Why not XML? - too verbose - unclear how to treat attributes vs contents
Why not YAML? - significant white-space - specification is too big
Why not TOML? - alien syntax - absolute paths are not scalable
Why not XXX? - if you know a better format, tell me!