Cirru Parser

This crate provides a parser for the Cirru text syntax, an indentation-based syntax that can be used as a replacement for S-Expressions. It's designed to be simple, clean, and easy to read.

For example, this Cirru code:

defn fib (x)
  if (<= x 2) 1
    +
      fib $ dec x
      fib $ - x 2

is parsed into a tree structure that represents the nested expressions:

[ ["defn" "fib" [ "x" ]
    [ "if" [ "<=" "x" "2" ] "1"
      [ "+" [ "fib" ["dec" "x"] ] [ "fib" ["-" "x" "2"] ] ]
    ]
] ]

✨ Improved Error Handling

The parser provides detailed error messages with:

Exact line and column numbers
Code snippet preview with visual pointer (^)
Context description (e.g., "in string literal", "at line start")
Escaped special characters in snippets for clarity (shows \n, \t, etc.)

Example error output:

Error: Invalid indentation (odd number: 3)
  at line 2, column 4
  context: checking indentation
  near (escaped): ...defn calculate\n   add 1 2...

Usage

Add this to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
cirru_parser = "0.2"

Parsing

The parse function returns a Result with the parsed tree:

use cirru_parser::{parse, Cirru};

fn main() {
  let code = "defn main\n  println \"Hello, world!\"";

  match parse(code) {
    Ok(tree) => {
      println!("Parsed: {:?}", tree);

      let expected = vec![
        Cirru::List(vec![
          Cirru::Leaf("defn".into()),
          Cirru::Leaf("main".into()),
          Cirru::List(vec![
            Cirru::Leaf("println".into()),
            Cirru::Leaf("Hello, world!".into()),
          ]),
        ]),
      ];

      assert_eq!(tree, expected);
    }
    Err(e) => {
      eprintln!("Parse error: {}", e);
      // For detailed error display:
      // use cirru_parser::print_error;
      // print_error(&e, Some(code));
    }
  }
}

For cleaner error output with context:

use cirru_parser::{parse, print_error};

fn main() {
  let code = "defn calculate\n   add 1 2";  // Odd indentation (3 spaces)
  
  match parse(code) {
    Ok(tree) => println!("Success: {:?}", tree),
    Err(e) => {
      print_error(&e, Some(code));
      // Output:
      // Error: Invalid indentation (odd number: 3)
      //   at line 2, column 4
      //   context: checking indentation
      //   near (escaped): ...defn calculate\n   add 1 2...
    }
  }
}

Formatting

This crate also provides a format function to convert a Cirru tree back into a string. You can control the output format with CirruWriterOptions.

use cirru_parser::{parse, format, CirruWriterOptions};

let code = "a (b c)";
let tree = parse(code).unwrap();

let options = CirruWriterOptions { use_inline: true };
let formatted_code = format(&tree, options).unwrap();

assert_eq!(formatted_code, "a (b c)");

Escaping

When creating Cirru code programmatically, you might need to escape strings to ensure they are treated as single leaves, especially if they contain spaces or special characters.

use cirru_parser::escape_cirru_leaf;

let escaped = escape_cirru_leaf("a b");
assert_eq!(escaped, "\"a b\"");

Features

This crate provides the following features:

Default features:

serde: The Cirru type implements Serialize and Deserialize traits by default, allowing integration with any serde-compatible serialization format (bincode, MessagePack, etc.).

Optional features:

serde-json: Provides JSON conversion utilities (from_json_str, to_json_str, etc.) for converting between Cirru structures and JSON.

To use JSON conversion features, add them to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
cirru_parser = { version = "0.2", features = ["serde-json"] }

Examples

use cirru_parser::Cirru;

// Basic usage (always available)
let data = Cirru::leaf("hello");

// Serde serialization (always available)
use serde_json;
let json = serde_json::to_string(&data).unwrap();

// JSON conversion (requires "serde-json" feature)
#[cfg(feature = "serde-json")]
{
    use cirru_parser::from_json_str;
    let cirru = from_json_str(r#"["a", ["b", "c"]]"#).unwrap();
}

Development

Contributions are welcome! Here's how to get started:

Run tests: cargo test
Run benchmarks: cargo bench
Check for issues: cargo clippy

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

cirru_parser 0.2.0