cson

CSON

CoffeeScript-Object-Notation Parser. Same as JSON but for CoffeeScript objects.

Projects using CSON.

Install

NPM

• Use: require('cson')
• Install: npm install --save cson

What is CSON?

Everyone knows JSON, it's the thing that looks like this:

{
	"abc": [
		"a",
		"b",
		"c"
	],
	"a": {
		"b": "c"
	}
}

But with the invention of CoffeeScript you can also write the same thing in CSON which looks like this:

{
	# an array
	abc: [
		'a'
		'b'
		'c'
	]

	# an object
	a:
		b: 'c'
}

Which is far more lenient than JSON, way nicer to write and read, no need to quote everything, has comments and readable multi-line strings, and won't fail if you forget a comma.

Using CSON

• With Node.js in JavaScript

  // Include CSON
  CSON = require('cson');
  
  // Parse a file path
  CSON.parseFile('data.cson', function(err,obj){});  // async
  result = CSON.parseFileSync('data.cson');  // sync
  
  // Parse a String
  CSON.parse(src, function(err,obj){});  // async
  result = CSON.parseSync(src);  // sync
  
  // Stringify an object to CSON
  CSON.stringify(obj, function(err,str){});  // async
  result = CSON.stringifySync(obj);  // sync
  

• With Node.js in CoffeeScript

  # Include CSON
  CSON = require('cson')
  
  # Parse a file path
  CSON.parseFile 'data.cson', (err,obj) ->  # async
  result = CSON.parseFileSync('data.cson')  # sync
  
  # Parse a string
  CSON.parse src, (err,obj) ->  # async
  result = CSON.parseSync(src)  # sync
  
  # Stringify an object to CSON
  CSON.stringify data, (err,str) ->  # async
  result = CSON.stringifySync(obj)  # sync
  
  
  

• Via the command line (requires a global installation of CSON via npm install -g cson)

  # JSON file to CSON String
  json2cson filePath > out.cson
  
  # CSON file to JSON String
  cson2json filePath > out.json
  

Use Case

CSON is fantastic for developers writing their own configuration to be executed on their own machines, but bad for configuration you can't trust. This is because parsing CSON will execute the CSON input as CoffeeScript code (making it unsafe, so while true would work) but it does so inside a node virtual machine for isolation (making it secure, so require('fs') won't work) resulting in the evaluated JavaScript object. This is a non-issue for the only use case which CSON actually makes sense for (developers writing their own configuration to be executed on their own machines). Issue #32 has more information.

History

Discover the change history by heading on over to the HISTORY.md file.

Contribute

Discover how you can contribute by heading on over to the CONTRIBUTING.md file.

Backers

Maintainers

These amazing people are maintaining this project:

• Benjamin Lupton [e-mail] (https://github.com/balupton)

Sponsors

No sponsors yet! Will you be the first?

Contributors

These amazing people have contributed code to this project:

• attilaolah — view contributions
• Benjamin Lupton [e-mail] — view contributions
• evinugur — view contributions
• jasonkarns — view contributions
• Joel Perras [e-mail] — view contributions
• Linus G Thiel [e-mail] — view contributions
• Nicolae Claudius [e-mail] — view contributions
• RobLoach — view contributions
• Ryan LeFevre [e-mail] — view contributions
• Zhang Cheng [e-mail] — view contributions

Become a contributor!

License

Licensed under the incredibly permissive MIT license

Copyright © 2012+ Bevry Pty Ltd [e-mail] (http://bevry.me)
Copyright © 2011 Benjamin Lupton [e-mail] (http://balupton.com)

Changelog

v1.6.0 2014 May 17

• Updated dependencies
• Fixed error handling in certain conditions