Cobble Structured Text

Cobble#

Smart Tools for Developers

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Introduction#

Cobble Structured Text (Cobble STX) is a library for manipulating data stored in text files. It is an alternative to Properties, XML or JSON file formats.

Key differences with other data text formats:

• Use traditional standard ASCII non-printable characters as separators
• Can be manipulated at several "levels" of structure

Benefits

• Simple, compact syntax, but can still hold complex data structures
• Use of non-printable separators means no need to worry about escaping brackets or punctuation
• As simple as properties files, but very extensible
• Convenient to display in a terminal

Structure Levels

• Raw lines
• Lines containing tuples
• Lines organised in sections (sections can be named or not)
• Dictionary: lines containing key/value pairs
• Object collection: objects can be named or not
• Multiple object collections organised in sections (named or not)

Separators

• Lines: CR (carriage return)
• Tuples: TAB
• Objects: LF (line feed)
• Sections: FF (form feed)

Structured Text Specifications