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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`)

``` bash
# 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.