config.cr

config.cr is a parser for a configuration format designed to be more effective than JSON, YAML, INI, and HJSON. It also inherits aspects from 'OpenBSD style' configs like macros.

# TL;DR
$self = config.cr

json:    Too many quotes
yaml:    Pays attention to whitespace
ini:     No nesting
hjson:   Data oriented. Support?
openbsd: Macros are awesome

/* If only something combined the good
   parts and got rid of the bad */

answer: $self

Installation

Add this to your application's shard.yml:

dependencies:
  config:
    github: chris-huxtable/config.cr

Usage

require "config"

You can parse a file with:

config = Config.file("/path/to/file.conf")

You can access the entries via the Config::Any objects.

config = Config.parse("username: chris, link: https://github.com/chris-huxtable/config.cr")

username = config.as_s("username")
link = config.as_a("link")

Format

Root Object:

The root is considered an object. That is to say you must provide a key for any root entry and you should not wrap entries in {}.

key: "value"

Keys:

Unlike JSON, object keys can be specified without quotes.

rate: 1000

Strings:

Unlike JSON, strings can be specified without quotes as long as it doesn't contain special characters like :, =, {, }, [, ], or ,. Though, :, = are allowed if they are not a key.

rate: This is a string.

Separators:

Unlike JSON, entries can be separated with commas or newlines.

first: 1
second: 2, third: 3

Comments:

There are three types of comments to support the common commenting styles.

Hash Comments:

A to-end-of-line comment initiated by a # symbol. As common in Crystal, Ruby, Python, Shell, Perl, et al.

# hash style comments
# (because it's just one character)

Line Comments:

A to-end-of-line comment initiated by a //. As common in C, Objective-C, C++, D, Swift, PHP, JavaScript, et al.

// line style comments
// (because it's like C/Objective-C/...)

Block Comments:

A block comment initiated by a /* and terminated by */. As common in C, Objective-C, C++, D, Swift, PHP, et al.

/* block style comments because
   it allows you to comment out a block */

Note: This does not yet support nested comments.

Macros:

A macro is a saved value which can be referenced in the rest fo the document. The key must be prefixed with a $ and assigned with a = as opposed to a :.

$defaultName = "Default Name"
$nameKey = name

$defaultObject = {
	first: 1
	second: 2
}

$nameKey: $defaultName
object: $defaultObject

Note: Macro's cannot yet be inserted into strings.

Fault Tolerance:

Recovers from easy to make mistakes. Like useless commas.

first: 1
second: 2,
third: 3,,,

Contributing

Fork it ( https://github.com/chris-huxtable/config.cr/fork )
Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
Create a new Pull Request

Contributors

Chris Huxtable - creator, maintainer