# hocon-parser — HOCON Parser for Rust
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A [Lightbend HOCON specification](https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/main/HOCON.md)
parser for Rust. Hand-written lexer, recursive-descent parser, and a typed `Config` API
with optional Serde integration. See [Spec Compliance](#spec-compliance) for the current
conformance rate.
[日本語](README.ja.md)
**Library stance** — This library is a HOCON config loader. Its purpose is reading `.hocon` config files and providing typed access via the `Config` API (`get_string`, `get_i64`, `get_f64`, `get_bool`, `get_duration`, `get_bytes`). It is not a low-level parser API; internal types like `ScalarValue` may change between minor versions.
**Cross-language conformance** — This implementation is tested against shared expected-JSON fixtures from [o3co/xx.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/xx.hocon) alongside [ts.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/ts.hocon) and [go.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/go.hocon), ensuring all three implementations meet the same Lightbend HOCON specification.
## Quick Start
### 1. Install
```sh
cargo add hocon-parser
```
To enable Serde support:
```sh
cargo add hocon-parser --features serde
```
### 2. Use
```rust
use hocon;
fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let config = hocon::parse(r#"
server {
host = "localhost"
port = 8080
}
database {
url = "jdbc:postgresql://localhost/mydb"
pool-size = 10
}
"#)?;
let host = config.get_string("server.host")?;
let port = config.get_i64("server.port")?;
println!("Server: {}:{}", host, port);
Ok(())
}
```
## Why HOCON?
| | `.env` | JSON | YAML | HOCON |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Comments | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Nesting | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| References / Substitution | No | No | No | Yes (`${var}`) |
| File inclusion | No | No | No | Yes (`include`) |
| Object merging | No | No | Anchors (fragile) | Yes (deep merge) |
| Optional values | No | No | No | Yes (`${?var}`) |
| Trailing commas | N/A | No | N/A | Yes |
| Unquoted strings | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
HOCON isn't just a serialization format — it's a **config-injection language**. JSON, YAML, and TOML describe data structures and leave file layering, environment variables, and reference resolution to your code (Pydantic, Serde, Zod, etc.). HOCON bakes those into the spec itself: by the time your program reads the config, fallback files are merged and `${VAR}` references resolved into a single composed object. Conditional branching from "is this value present in this layer?" disappears at the format boundary.
On top of that, HOCON combines the readability of YAML with the structure of JSON — making it a strong fit for anything beyond flat key-value config.
## Features
- Complete HOCON syntax: objects, arrays, comments, multi-line strings, unquoted strings
- Substitutions (`${foo}`, `${?foo}`) with cycle detection
- `include` directives (file, classpath, URL) with relative path resolution
- Object merging and array concatenation per spec
- String, array, and object value concatenation
- Duration and byte-size parsing (`10 seconds`, `512 MB`)
- Environment variable substitution (`${HOME}`)
- Dot-separated path expressions (`server.host`)
- Fallback configuration merging (`with_fallback`)
- Deferred resolution lifecycle: `parse_string_with_options` → `with_fallback` → `resolve()`
per Lightbend `parseString` / `withFallback` / `resolve()` API (E12, v1.4.0)
- Optional Serde deserialization support
- Passes Lightbend equivalence tests (equiv01 through equiv05)
## API Reference
### Parsing
```rust
// Parse a HOCON string
let config = hocon::parse(input)?;
// Parse a HOCON file (resolves include directives relative to file location)
let config = hocon::parse_file("application.conf")?;
// Parse with custom environment variables
use std::collections::HashMap;
let env: HashMap<String, String> = HashMap::new();
let config = hocon::parse_with_env(input, &env)?;
let config = hocon::parse_file_with_env("application.conf", &env)?;
```
### Typed Getters
All typed getters return `Result<T, ConfigError>`. Paths use dot notation.
```rust
let host: String = config.get_string("server.host")?;
let port: i64 = config.get_i64("server.port")?;
let rate: f64 = config.get_f64("rate")?;
let debug: bool = config.get_bool("debug")?; // also accepts "yes"/"no", "on"/"off"
let sub: Config = config.get_config("database")?; // sub-object as Config
let items: Vec<HoconValue> = config.get_list("items")?;
```
### Option Variants
Return `Option<T>` instead of `Result` -- return `None` for missing keys or type mismatches.
```rust
let host: Option<String> = config.get_string_option("server.host");
let port: Option<i64> = config.get_i64_option("server.port");
let rate: Option<f64> = config.get_f64_option("rate");
let debug: Option<bool> = config.get_bool_option("debug");
```
### Duration and Byte-Size Values
```rust
use std::time::Duration;
// Supports: ns, us, ms, s/seconds, m/minutes, h/hours, d/days
let timeout: Duration = config.get_duration("server.timeout")?;
// Supports: B, KB, KiB, MB, MiB, GB, GiB, TB, TiB (and long forms)
let max_size: i64 = config.get_bytes("upload.max-size")?;
```
### Inspection
```rust
let exists: bool = config.has("server.host");
let keys: Vec<&str> = config.keys(); // top-level keys in insertion order
let raw: Option<&HoconValue> = config.get("server.host");
```
### Fallback Merge
```rust
// Receiver wins; fallback fills missing keys. Objects are deep-merged.
let merged = app_config.with_fallback(&defaults);
```
### Deferred Resolution (v1.4.0)
Parse without resolving, add a runtime fallback, then resolve in a single pass:
```rust
use hocon::{parse_string_with_options, ParseOptions, ResolveOptions};
fn main() -> Result<(), Box<dyn std::error::Error>> {
let cfg = parse_string_with_options(
r#"version = ${shortversion}-${CI_RUN_NUMBER}
variables { shortversion = "1.2.3" }"#,
ParseOptions::defaults().with_resolve_substitutions(false),
)?;
assert!(!cfg.is_resolved());
let runtime = hocon::empty(None); // or from_map with runtime values
let vars = cfg.get_config("variables")?;
let resolved = cfg
.with_fallback(&runtime)
.with_fallback(&vars)
.resolve(ResolveOptions::defaults())?;
println!("{}", resolved.get_string("version")?); // e.g. "1.2.3-42"
Ok(())
}
```
You can also use `resolve_with` to supply a resolved source for substitution lookup
without merging its keys into the result:
```rust
let resolved = cfg.resolve_with(&source_config, ResolveOptions::defaults())?;
```
### Serde Deserialization
Requires the `serde` feature.
```rust
use serde::Deserialize;
#[derive(Deserialize)]
struct ServerConfig {
host: String,
port: u16,
}
let config = hocon::parse(input)?;
let server: ServerConfig = config
.get_config("server")?
.deserialize()?;
```
## Error Types
| Type | When |
|------|------|
| `ParseError` | Syntax errors during lexing/parsing (includes line and column) |
| `ResolveError` | Substitution failures, cyclic references, missing required variables |
| `ConfigError` | Missing keys or type mismatches during value access |
| `ConfigError` (use `.is_not_resolved()` to detect "value not yet resolved") | Getter called on a path containing an unresolved substitution placeholder (v1.4.0) |
| `DeserializeError` | Serde deserialization failures (with `serde` feature) |
## HOCON Examples
```hocon
# Comments start with // or #
server {
host = "0.0.0.0"
port = 8080
timeout = 30 seconds
max-upload = 512 MB
}
# Substitutions
app {
name = "my-app"
title = "Welcome to "${app.name}
}
# Array concatenation
base-tags = ["production"]
tags = ${base-tags} ["v2"]
# Include other files
include "defaults.conf"
# Unquoted strings
path = /usr/local/bin
# Multi-line strings
description = """
This is a multi-line
string value.
"""
# Object merging
defaults { color = "blue", size = 10 }
defaults { size = 20 } # merges: color stays, size updated
```
## Performance
Measured with [Criterion](https://github.com/bheisler/criterion.rs). Each iteration includes parsing and a `get_string` lookup. Run `cargo bench` to reproduce.
| Scenario | ops/sec | Time per op |
|---|---|---|
| Small config (10 keys) | ~62,000 | ~16 µs |
| Medium config (100 keys) | ~19,000 | ~52 µs |
| Large config (1,000 keys) | ~2,400 | ~408 µs |
| 10 substitutions | ~37,000 | ~27 µs |
| 50 substitutions | ~12,000 | ~86 µs |
| 100 substitutions | ~6,400 | ~156 µs |
| Depth 5 nesting | ~58,000 | ~17 µs |
| Depth 10 nesting | ~50,000 | ~20 µs |
| Depth 20 nesting | ~39,000 | ~26 µs |
For typical application configs (loaded once at startup), the parsing cost is negligible — even a 1,000-key config parses in under 0.5 ms.
## Comparison
✅ Full support / ⚠️ Partial / ❌ Not supported
### HOCON Implementation
| Feature | rs.hocon | [hocon-rs](https://github.com/mockersf/hocon.rs) |
|---|:---:|:---:|
| Substitutions (`${path}`) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Optional substitutions (`${?path}`) | ✅ | ✅ |
| Include | ✅ | ✅ |
| `include required(file(...))` | ✅ | ❌ |
| Object/Array concatenation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Type coercion | ✅ | ⚠️ |
| Duration parsing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Byte size parsing | ✅ | ✅ |
| `+=` append | ✅ | ❌ |
| Serde deserialization | ✅ | ✅ |
| Env variable fallback | ✅ | ❌ |
| Circular include detection | ✅ | ❌ |
### Config Framework
| | rs.hocon | [config-rs](https://github.com/mehcode/config-rs) |
|---|:---:|:---:|
| **Formats** | | |
| HOCON | ✅ | ❌ |
| JSON | ✅ | ✅ |
| YAML | ❌ | ✅ |
| TOML | ❌ | ✅ |
| Env vars | ✅ (fallback) | ✅ |
| .properties | ✅ (via include) | ❌ |
| **Features** | | |
| Substitutions | ✅ | ❌ |
| File includes | ✅ | ❌ |
| Type coercion | ✅ | ✅ |
| Serde support | ✅ | ✅ |
| Watch/reload | ❌ | ❌ |
| Layered config | ❌ | ✅ |
## Spec Compliance
Conformance against the [Lightbend HOCON specification](https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/main/HOCON.md) is tracked at item granularity in [`docs/spec-compliance.md`](docs/spec-compliance.md). The table below is a snapshot as of 2026-05-13; see [`xx.hocon/docs/compliance-matrix.md`](https://github.com/o3co/xx.hocon/blob/main/docs/compliance-matrix.md) for live cross-impl values.
| Metric | Status |
| ------------------------------------- | ------------- |
| Spec total (incl. out-of-scope) | **75.6%** |
| In-scope only | **84.0%** |
| Lightbend `equiv01`–`equiv05` suite | 5/5 passing |
### Stricter than Lightbend
- **S8.6 leading-hyphen rejection** (Unreleased): `a = -foo`, `a = -bar`, `a = -` etc. now raise a lex error per HOCON.md L270–276, where Lightbend silently falls back to unquoted strings. The same rule applies to substitution paths (`${-foo}`) and dotted key segments (`a.-foo = 1`). Mitigation: quote the value (`a = "-foo"`). See [CHANGELOG](CHANGELOG.md#unreleased) and [`docs/spec-compliance.md`](docs/spec-compliance.md) §S8.6.
## Minimum Supported Rust Version
The MSRV is **1.82**.
## Related Projects
| Project | Language | Registry | Description |
|---------|----------|----------|-------------|
| [ts.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/ts.hocon) | TypeScript | [npm](https://www.npmjs.com/package/@o3co/ts.hocon) | HOCON parser for TypeScript/Node.js |
| [go.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/go.hocon) | Go | [pkg.go.dev](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/o3co/go.hocon) | HOCON parser for Go |
| [hocon2](https://github.com/o3co/hocon2) | Go | [pkg.go.dev](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/o3co/hocon2) | HOCON → JSON/YAML/TOML/Properties CLI |
The three parser implementations ([ts.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/ts.hocon), [rs.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/rs.hocon), [go.hocon](https://github.com/o3co/go.hocon)) are all tracked against the same Lightbend HOCON spec — see the [cross-impl roll-up](https://github.com/o3co/xx.hocon/blob/main/docs/compliance-matrix.md) for per-impl conformance rates.
## Best Practices
### Config Structure
- **Split by domain**: Separate configuration into logical units (`database.conf`, `server.conf`, `logging.conf`)
- **Use `include` for composition**: Compose a full config from domain-specific files
- **Avoid logic in config**: HOCON is for declarative data, not conditionals or computation
### Environment Variables
- **Minimize `${ENV}` usage**: Prefer `${?ENV}` (optional) with sensible defaults defined in the config itself
- **Never require env vars for local development**: Defaults should work out of the box
- **Document required env vars**: List them in your project's README or a `.env.example`
### Dev / Prod Separation
```text
config/
├── application.conf # shared defaults
├── dev.conf # include "application.conf" + dev overrides
└── prod.conf # include "application.conf" + prod overrides
```
### Validation
- Always validate config at application startup, not at point-of-use
- Use schema validation (Zod for TypeScript, struct unmarshaling for Go, Serde for Rust) to catch errors early
```rust
use serde::Deserialize;
#[derive(Deserialize)]
struct ServerConfig {
host: String,
port: u16,
}
#[derive(Deserialize)]
struct AppConfig {
server: ServerConfig,
debug: bool,
}
// requires the `serde` feature
let cfg: AppConfig = config.deserialize()?; // fails fast on startup
```
## Known Limitations
- **`include url(...)`** is not supported. Fetching remote configuration is outside the scope of this parser. Use your application's HTTP client to fetch the content, then pass it to `parse()`.
- **`include classpath(...)`** is not supported. This is a JVM-specific include form with no equivalent outside Java runtimes.
- **No watch/reload** — the library parses config at load time. For live-reloading, call `parse()` / `parse_file()` again on change.
- **No streaming parser** — the entire input is loaded into memory.
- **`.properties` include** — supports basic `key=value` syntax. Does not support multiline values (backslash continuation), unicode escapes, or key escaping from the full Java .properties specification.
For full API documentation, see [docs.rs](https://docs.rs/hocon-parser) (available after crate publication).
## Security Considerations
When parsing untrusted HOCON input, be aware of:
- **Path traversal in includes:** `include "../../../etc/passwd"` will resolve relative to `base_dir`. Validate include paths if parsing untrusted input.
- **Input size:** The parser has no built-in input size limit. For untrusted input, validate size before calling `parse()`.
## License
Licensed under the [Apache License, Version 2.0](LICENSE).
## Attribution
Designed and built end-to-end with [Claude Code](https://claude.ai/claude-code).
Reviewed by [GitHub Copilot](https://github.com/features/copilot) and [OpenAI Codex](https://openai.com/index/openai-codex/).