SLIC

Single Line Configuration (SLIC) is a data format that attempts to be as short as possible while remaining readable and easily editable on a single line. It's like JSON with stripped quotes, some optional tokens, and a few enhancements.

The format was designed for usage in HTML attributes where JSON is tougher to both read and write. You could also put the data in a file, spread it on multiple lines as you please, and use it as a configuration file, for example.

Features

It's a lot like JSON:

• Keys are separated from values with :
• Key-value pairs are separated with ,
• Objects are delimited with { and }
• Arrays are delimited with [ and ]

Except:

• Quotation marks are omitted
• Optional starting and ending bracket
• Optional : and , before and after arrays/objects
• Primitive values (numbers, booleans, and null) are parsed
• String input with no special tokens is returned as is (primitives are still parsed)
• Object keys with no values are set to true
• Object keys with no values that begin with ! are set to false
• Explicit strings are delimited with ` which is escaped with \

Example

This:

test: Hello, data { type: text, !isActive, numbers [5, 6] }

...results in:

{
  "test": "Hello",
  "data": {
    "type": "text",
    "isActive": false,
    "numbers": [5, 6]
  }
}

You can easily check more examples in the tests.

Installation

With npm:

npm i slic

Usage

var SlicParser = require('slic').Parser
var parser = new SlicParser()
var data = parser.parse('text: Hello!')

console.log(data) // { "text": "Hello!" }