JSON Specialiser

JSON Specialiser (JSON-S) is a tool for taking in any structured or unstructured JSON document and generating a client specialised to a client. This is primary use case for the technology is to manage large config files that are delivered to a variety of clients.

JSON-S documents are written exactly like regular JSON, in fact a plain JSON string is entirely valid JSON-S code. JSON-S is annotated with special "control codes", that instruct the compiler how a document should be interpreted and modified. Control codes are keys in a JSON object that start with a #, and contain arguments describing their function. An example of a control code is like so:

{
  "platformText": {
    "#selector": [
      {
        "claims": [["android"]],
        "child": "You are an Android user!"
      },
      {
        "child": "You are not an Android user :("
      }
    ]
  }
}

In the above example, given a client with the claim "android", the output from the compiler would be

{
  "platformText": "You are an Android user!"
}

Codes

#selector

The selector control code allows the compiler to choose between any number of options based on information about the client. By default, the code only evaluates based on "claims", a list of strings that represent the client, but the compiler can be extended with custom fields (for example, a field matching max and min version could be implemented).

Claims are grouped in an all-any relationship, where the nested arrays represent a group of claims that must match the client entirely, and the top level arrays just need any of the nested conditions to match. For example

Given a client that has the claims ["claim1", "claim2"], [["claim1", "claim3"], ["claim4"]] would not match, since the user doesn't have both claim (1 && 4) || 5. On the other hand, [["claim1"], ["claim3"]] would match, since the user has claim1.

The arguments of selector are a list of options, those options constituting some number of conditions (or none, for an else branch) and a child that will be inserted after evaluation. Options are in priority order, the first option that matches will be returned.

An example of a selector can be seen above.

#include

Include allows the document to insert another JSON document in place. For this to work, the compiler must be provided a FileAccessStrategy. An example of an include is as follows:

{
  "#include": {
    "file": "otherfile.json"
  }
}

This feature is useful for managing large and complex files.

#combine

Combine flattens any nested set of arrays xor objects. It is used like so:

{
  "#combine": [
    {
      "key": "value"
    },
    {
      "key1": "value1"
    }
  ]
}

which would output

{
  "key": "value",
  "key1": "value1"
}

Arrays work similarly

{
  "#combine": [
    ["thing1", "thing2"],
    ["thing3"]
  ]
}

would output

["thing1", "thing2", "thing3"]