forge

Forge is a configuration syntax and parser.

Installation

git get github.com/brettlangdon/forge

File format

The format was influenced a lot by nginx configuration file format.

global_key = "string value";
sub_settings {
  sub_int = 500;
  sub_float = 80.80;
  sub_sub_settings {
    sub_sub_sub_settings {
      key = "value";
    }
  }
}

second {
  key = "value";
  global_reference = sub_settings.sub_float;
  local_reference = .key;
}

For normal settings the format is the key followed by an equal sign followed by the value and lastly ending with a semicolon. <key> = <value>;

Sections (basically a map) is formatted as the section name with the section's settings wrapped in brackets. <section> { <key> = <value>; }

Data types

Boolean

A boolean value is either true or false of any case.

TRUE, true, True, FALSE, False, false.

String

A string value is wrapped by double quotes (single quotes will not work).

"string value", "single ' quotes ' allowed".

As of right now there is no way to escape double quotes within a string's value;

Number

There are two supported numbers, Integer and Float, both of which are simply numbers with the later having one period.

500, 50.56.

Section

Sections are essentially maps, that is a setting whose purpose is to hold other settings. Sections can be used to namespace settings.

section { setting = "value"; }.

References

References are used to refer to previously defined settings. There are two kinds of references, a global reference and a local reference;

The general format for a reference is a mix of identifiers and periods, for example production.db.name.

A global reference is a reference which starts looking for its value from the top most section (global section).

A local reference is a reference whose value starts with a period, this reference will start looking for it's value from the current section it is within (local section).

production {
  db {
    name = "forge";
  }
}

development {
  db {
    name = production.db.name;
  }
  db_name = .db.name;
}

API

github.com/brettlangdon/forge

• forge.ParseString(data string) (map[string]interface{}, error)
• forge.ParseBytes(data []byte) (map[string]interface{}, error)
• forge.ParseFile(filename string) (map[string]interface{}, error)
• forge.ParseReader(reader io.Reader) (map[string]interface{}, error)

Example

You can see example usage in the example folder.

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"json"

	"github.com/brettlangdon/forge"
)

func main() {
	// Parse the file `example.cfg` as a map[string]interface{}
	settings, err := forge.ParseFile("example.cfg")
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	// Convert the settings to JSON for printing
	jsonBytes, err := json.Marshal(settings)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	// Print the parsed settings
	fmt.Println(string(jsonBytes))
}

Future Plans

The following features are currently on my bucket list for the future:

More data types

I would like to at least add Boolean possibly List

Operations/Expressions

Would be nice to have Addition/Subtraction/Multiplication/Division:

whole = 100
half = whole / 2;
double = whole * 2;
one_more = whole + 1;
one_less = whole - 1;

Also Concatenation for strings:

domain = "github.com";
username = "brettlangdon";
name = "forge";
repo_url = domain + "/" + username + "/" + name;

API

I'll probably revisit the API, I just threw it together quick, want to make sure it right.

Support for comments

This is pretty lacking and should be added soon.

Documentation

Documentation is a good thing.