TOML? YAML? ini-files? JSON? Loosen up!

2018-12-10 11:26  jsonloose      [permalink]

TOML? YAML? plain old INI-files? or shiny and new — but strict — JSON? Nàh. I've made myself something better. In jsonDoc.pas I've recently added an optional compiler define JSONDOC_JSON_LOOSE that makes the JSON parser a whole lot genter to work with. Some things are no longer required: the root document doesn't need to start and end with braces ("{}"), the quotes around the key names are no longer required (unless they contain special chars), the comma's between key-value pairs are no longer required, it accepts equal ("=") between keys and values instead of colon (":") and can even do entirely without.

And while I was at it there's also JSONDOC_JSON_PASCAL_STRINGS that allows you to write string literals the Delphi way: between single quotes, and double single quotes where you want a single quote in the string value. This way — really handy in Windows environments — it doesn't require you to escape backslashes.

The only downside maybe is that you need to add the defines to the compiler parameters, but for plain old configuration something like this:

x=5
y=10
output='C:\test\output\'

looks a lot nicer and like what we're used to, and gets parsed just the same as if it was written like this:

{
  "x":5,
  "y":10,
  "output":"C:\\test\\output\\"
}

→