scon

SCON — Schema-Compact Object Notation

A human-readable data serialization format with structural deduplication. Smaller than JSON, faster to parse, no binary encoding.

Quick Start

use scon::{encode, decode, Value};

let mut data = scon::value::SconMap::new();
data.insert("name".into(), Value::String("scon".into()));
data.insert("version".into(), Value::Integer(1));
let obj = Value::Object(data);

let scon_str = encode(&obj);
let parsed = decode(&scon_str).unwrap();
assert_eq!(parsed, obj);

Features

• 3 decoder modes: Owned (two-pass), Borrowed (zero-copy arena), Tape (single-pass flat)
• Structural dedup: xxHash128 fingerprinting detects repeated subtrees, replaces with schema references — 59-66% payload reduction on OpenAPI specs
• Schema subsystem: Registry with cycle detection, deep merge, dot-notation overrides
• Validation: Loose/Warn/Strict modes with OpenAPI enforcement rules
• Minifier: Bidirectional minify (indent to semicolons) and expand

Performance

The tape decoder beats simd-json on 2/3 benchmark datasets:

500 iterations, release mode, tracking allocator. Full methodology: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.14733092

Format

name: scon
version: 1
features:
  dedup: true
  modes[3]: owned, borrowed, tape
endpoints[2]{method,path,status}:
  GET, /api/users, 200
  POST, /api/users, 201

No braces, no brackets, no repeated keys in uniform arrays, unquoted strings, built-in schema dedup via @s:name references.

API

use scon::*;

// Encode / Decode
let encoded = encode(&value);
let decoded = decode(&scon_string)?;

// Structural dedup (auto-extracts repeated subtrees)
let deduped = encode_with_dedup(&value);

// Minify / Expand
let mini = minify(&scon_string);
let expanded = expand(&mini, 2);

// Tape decoder (single-pass, fastest)
let tape = TapeDecoder::new().decode(input)?;

// Borrowed decoder (zero-copy, bumpalo arena)
let arena = bumpalo::Bump::new();
let borrowed = BorrowedDecoder::new(&arena).decode(input)?;

// Validation
let result = Validator::new(ValidationMode::Strict)
    .validate(&value, &schema);

License

MIT