xt

xt is a cross-format translator for JSON, YAML, TOML, and MessagePack.

For example, you can process a set of TOML files with jq:

$ xt a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock | jq -r '.package[].name' | sort -u
aho-corasick
atty
autocfg
# etc.

Or transform a JSON configuration file into YAML for easier editing:

$ xt -t yaml config.json > config.yaml

Or store a stream of JSON events as MessagePack to save space:

$ curl localhost:8001/apis/events.k8s.io/v1/events?watch | xt -tm > events.msgpack

Installation

You can install xt from crates.io, using Rust 1.56.0 or later.

cargo install --locked xt

Usage and Features

Run xt --help for full usage details.

xt is built to "do one thing well," and tries to maintain a simple CLI interface with limited options (for example, no control over details of the output formatting). The most common options are -t to specify an output format other than JSON, and one more more files to read from rather than standard input.

Some of xt's notable features include:

Efficiency

xt builds on the powerful and unique Serde ecosystem of streaming serializers and deserializers for various data formats, and can often wire an input format's parser directly to an output format's writer.

Automatic Format Detection

When the input format is not specified with the -f flag, xt will detect it automatically via file extension, or by trying different parsers on the input.

Multi-Document Support and Streaming

When an input format allows for multiple concatenated documents in a single input, xt will recognize and translate every document in the input. For example, a set of YAML documents separated by --- markers translates to a stream of newline-delimited JSON documents.

xt can translate unbounded JSON and MessagePack inputs without slurping all input into memory, even when automatic format detection is enabled.