Stick And String (SAS 1.1)

A human-readable, deterministic data serialization format.

SAS is designed to be easy to read and write by hand, while remaining strict enough to parse unambiguously — no comma errors, no indentation-sensitivity, and full JSON interoperability.

# SAS 1.1 example
__sas_version__ -> "1.1"

server ::
    host -> "localhost"
    port -> 8080
    tags -> ["api" | "production"]
    tls  -> true
:: server

Install

Node.js / Browser

npm install stick-and-string

Python

pip install stick-and-string

Quick Start

JavaScript

import { parseSAS, sasToJSON, jsonToSAS } from 'stick-and-string';

// Parse SAS → JS object
const obj = parseSAS(`
server ::
    host -> "localhost"
    port -> 8080
:: server
`);
console.log(obj.server.port); // 8080

// SAS → JSON string
const json = sasToJSON(sasSource);

// JS object / JSON string → SAS
const sas = jsonToSAS({ host: 'localhost', port: 8080 });

CommonJS

const { parseSAS, sasToJSON, jsonToSAS } = require('stick-and-string');

Browser (ESM)

<script type="module">
  import { parseSAS } from './node_modules/stick-and-string/index.mjs';
</script>

Python

from sas_tools import parse_sas, sas_to_json, json_to_sas

# Parse SAS → dict
obj = parse_sas(open("config.sas").read())
print(obj["server"]["port"])  # 8080

# SAS → JSON string
json_str = sas_to_json(open("config.sas").read())

# dict → SAS string
sas = json_to_sas({"host": "localhost", "port": 8080})

CLI

Both packages install a sas command.

# Validate a SAS file
sas validate config.sas

# Convert SAS → JSON
sas to-json config.sas
sas to-json config.sas --output config.json
sas to-json config.sas --compact

# Convert JSON → SAS
sas to-sas data.json
sas to-sas data.json --output data.sas --no-version

# Round-trip check (great for CI)
sas roundtrip config.sas
sas roundtrip data.json

Format Overview

Key → Value pairs

name    -> "Alice"
port    -> 8080
enabled -> true
ratio   -> 3.14
nothing -> null

Block objects (named open/close)

server ::
    host -> "db.internal"
    port -> 5432
:: server

Inline objects (small, flat)

origin -> { lat -> 37.77 | lon -> -122.41 }

Inline arrays (scalars)

tags -> ["api" | "production" | "v2"]

Block arrays

hosts ::
    - "web1.internal"
    - "web2.internal"
:: hosts

Block arrays of objects

servers ::
    - ::
        host -> "a.local"
        port -> 8080
    :: -
    - ::
        host -> "b.local"
        port -> 9090
    :: -
:: servers

Multiline strings

description -> """
Line one.
Line two.
"""

Comments

# This is a comment
# Inline comments are NOT permitted

API Reference

JavaScript

| Export | Signature | Description | |--------|-----------|-------------| | parseSAS | (source: string) → object | Parse SAS document | | sasToJSON | (source, {indent, stripVersion}) → string | SAS → JSON string | | sasToObject | (source) → object | SAS → plain JS object | | jsonToSAS | (input, {versionHeader, indent}) → string | object/JSON → SAS | | SASParseError | class | Parse error with .lineNum | | JSONToSASError | class | Serialization error with .path |

Python

| Export | Signature | Description | |--------|-----------|-------------| | parse_sas | (source: str) → dict | Parse SAS document | | sas_to_json | (source, indent, strip_version) → str | SAS → JSON string | | sas_to_object | (source) → dict | SAS → Python dict | | json_to_sas | (input, version_header, indent) → str | dict/JSON → SAS | | SASParseError | class | Parse error with .line_num | | JSONToSASError | class | Serialization error with .path |

Error Codes

All errors include a line number. Parser errors are never silent.

| Code | Description | |------|-------------| | E01 | Duplicate key in same scope | | E02 | Block closer mismatch or bare :: | | E03 | Unclosed block or multiline string at EOF | | E04 | Invalid escape sequence | | E05 | Invalid number (leading zero, +, NaN, etc.) | | E06 | Wrong-case boolean or null (True, NULL, …) | | E07 | Inline comment | | E08 | Missing spaces around -> | | E09 | Missing spaces around \| in inline array/object | | E10 | Trailing \| | | E11 | Non-scalar in inline array | | E12 | Nested inline object | | E13 | Key starting with - | | E14 | Mixed block content (array items + pairs) | | E15 | Anonymous closer outside array context |

Publishing

npm

cd npm/
npm publish --access public

PyPI

cd pip/
pip install build twine
python -m build
twine upload dist/*

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Sourasish Das
Licensed under the Vexon Open-Control License (VOCL) 1.0.