ASON is an innovative data format that has evolved from JSON, bringing forth strong data typing and support for variant types. It is designed for excellent readability and maintainability, making it a top choice for configuration files, data transfer, and data storage.

Key Features

• JSON Compatibility: ASON seamlessly integrates with base JSON and JSON5 syntax, ensuring a smooth transition for users familiar with JSON.
• Consistent Syntax: Its syntax closely resembles Rust, supporting comments, omitting double quotes for structure field names, and allowing trailing commas in lists, enhancing both familiarity and writing ease.
• Strong Data Typing: ASON supports explicit typing for numbers (e.g., u8, i32, f32, f64), as well as hexadecimal and binary representations. New types like DateTime, Tuple, ByteData, and Char enrich the type system for rigorous data representation.
• Native Variant Support: The format includes native support for variant data types, thus eliminating the error-prone null value and enabling seamless serialization of complex data structures.

Example Usage

Here’s a brief example showcasing ASON’s capabilities:

{
    string: "Hello World 🍀"
    raw_string: r"[a-z]+\d+"
    integer_number: 123
    floating_point_number: 3.14
    number_with_explicit_type: 255_u8
    boolean: true
    datetime: d"2023-03-24 12:30:00+08:00"
    bytedata: h"68 65 6c 6c 6f"
    list: [1, 2, 3]
    tuple: (1, "foo", true)
    object: {
        id: 123
        name: "Alice"
    }
    map: {
        123: "Alice"
        456: "Bob"
    }
    variant: Option::None
    variant_with_value: Option::Some(123)
    tuple_style_variant: Color::RGB(255, 127, 63)
    object_style_variant: Shape::Rect{
        width: 200
        height: 100
    }
}

Comparison with Other Formats

Compared to JSON

ASON enhances JSON by:

• Allowing trailing commas and omitted double quotes for object keys.
• Introducing various numeric data types.
• Supporting long, raw, and auto-trimmed strings, as well as comments.
• Removing null to provide a more robust variant implementation.

Compared to YAML and TOML

While YAML may introduce indentation complexities and TOML struggles with hierarchical representation, ASON stands out with consistency and simplicity across datasets of any size, making it easier to maintain.

Filename Extension

Files using ASON format should have the .ason extension, such as sample.ason or package.ason.

Libraries and APIs

The Rust ASON library supports serialization and deserialization through a simple API based on serde, with low-level access available through AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) operations. It is generally recommended to utilize the serde API for straightforward applications.

Serialization Example

To demonstrate serialization:

let text = "..."; // ASON text here
let package = from_str::<Package>(text).unwrap();

AST Operations

To parse an ASON text and access its AST:

let node = parse_from_str(text).unwrap();

Conclusion

With its strong data typing, readability, and added features, ASON provides a compelling alternative to traditional data formats such as JSON, YAML, and TOML. Experience robust data representation in your applications with ASON.