SML

SML is a simple markup language. It is designed to convert human readable information into Rust data-structures. The focus is on simplicity, usability and hands-on control (no magic). The format looks this,

text hobbit: name: "Frodo Baggins" age: "98" friends: hobbit: name: "Bilbo Baggins" age: "176" hobbit: name: "Samwise Gamgee" age: "66"

State of Progress

Small was created for processing schemas and loading config files, where its better to manually specify conversion types. This becomes overly verbose when used for serializing and deserializing structs and enums, where data-structures tend to be nested within each other. The goal is to reduce this verbosity by using procedural macros, but no deadlines are set for this.

Data Format Rules

  1. Indentation has meaning and is 4 spaces, relative to the top key.

  2. All values must be double quoted.

  3. Every key/value combination must be nested in a key. For example rust hobbit: "Frodo" by itself is invalid. It can be written: rust hobbit: name: "Frodo" The motivation behind this is for the data format to distinguish clearly between whole data structures, which are headed by a key only, and parts of a data structure which are either key/value pairs, representing fields or variants, or other data-structures, which again are headed by a key only.

  4. Separation of lines has meaning.

  5. Keys may not include :.

  6. Double quotes in values must be escaped using \".

  7. Everything after the second double quote is ignored (and can be used for commenting).

  8. Empty lines or lines with whitespace only are ignored.

Example 1: From Small-formatted string to your data-structure.

The following two examples should cover 90 percent of use cases. data-structure.

```rust use small::{Small, FromSmall, SmallError};

[derive(Debug)]

struct Hobbit { name: String, age: u32, friends: Vec, bicycle: Option, }

impl FromSmall for Hobbit { fn from_small(s: SmallRef) -> Result { Ok(Self { name: String::path(&s, "hobbit::name")?, age: u32::path(&s, "hobbit::age")?, friends: Vec::::path(&s, "hobbit::friends::hobbit")?, bicycle: Option::::path(&s, "hobbit::bicycle")?, }) } }

fn main() { let s = r#" hobbit: name: "Frodo Baggins" age: "98" friends: hobbit: name: "Bilbo Baggins" age: "176" hobbit: name: "Samwise Gamgee" age: "66""#;

let frodo = Hobbit::from_str_debug(s);

} ```

Example 2: From your data-structure to a Small-formatted string.

To convert from a data-structure to a string,

```rust use sml::{Small, ToSmall, SmallError};

[derive(Debug)]

struct Hobbit { name: String, age: u32, friends: Vec, bicycle: Option, }

impl ToSmall for Hobbit { fn tosmall(&self, key: &str) -> Result { Small::join("hobbit", &vec!( self.name.tosmall("name")?,
self.age.tosmall("age")?,
self.friends.tosmall("friends")?,
self.bicycle.to_small("bicycle")?, )) } }

println!("{}", frodo::key("hobbit"));

// hobbit: // name: "Frodo Baggins" // age: "98" // friends: // hobbit: // name: "Bilbo Baggins" // age: "176" // hobbit: // name: "Samwise Gamgee" // age: "66" ```

Basic Organization

text --------------------------from_str()---------------------------- | | | --------path()-------- | | | | | | | FromSmall trait | | | | --from_small()-- | -----to_ref()---- --from_str()--- | | | | | | | | | | | v v v | | v | v | | ---------- ------------ --------- ---------- | Hobbit | | SmallRef |-ref into->| Small | | String | ---------- ------------ --------- ---------- ^ ^ | ^ | | | | ------------ to_small()----------------- --to_string()-- ToSmall trait

Functions on Small

rust join(key: &str, subs: &Vec<Small>) -> Result<Small, SmallError>

Returns a Small type given a key and a Vec of Smalls. The Vec of Smalls are indented below the key. See example 2.

rust key_value(key: &str, value: String) -> Result<Small, SmallError>

Returns a Small type that consists of one key-value pair.

rust to_ref(&self) -> SmallRef

Converts self into a SmallRef.

FromSmall Trait

Types that implement the FromSmall trait can be constructed from a Small-formatted string.

Required function: rust from_small(slice: &SmallRef) -> Result<Self, SmallError> The from_small() function describes how to create a data-structure from the parts of SmallRef. See example 1 for canonical usage.

rust path(small: &SmallRef, key_path: &str) -> Result<Self, SmallError> Reduces SmallRef to the key_path and then uses the FromSmall trait to convert to the receiver type.

rust from_str(s: &str) -> Result<Self, SmallError> Top level function that convert a Small-formatted string into the receiver.

rust from_str_debug(s: &str) -> Self Top level function that converts a Small-formatted string into the receiver giving helpful error messages for debugging.

ToSmall Trait

The ToSmall trait is implemented for Strings, Vec<T>, Option<T>, bool and all the standard library integer and float types.

Required function: rust fn to_small(&self, key: &str) -> Result<Small, SmallError>; Converts a receiver that implements ToSmall into a Small-formatted string. key can be overridden in the implementation, depending on whether you want to data-structure itself to set the key name or whether you want to context of the Small-formatted string to set the key name.