The goal of the RSON project is to create a file format that is easy to edit, diff, and version control, that is a superset of JSON and smaller than YAML.

New!! A simplified version called rsonlite, which drops JSON compatibility, but is great for indented configuration files is now available.

There is a short manual available for RSON, and an example Python 2.x/3.x decoder is available. See the downloads section or use easy_install or pip to get it from PyPI. The example decoder is about as fast as the Python 2.6 JSON decoder. It is much faster than the pure-Python PyYaml decoder v. 3.09, somewhat slower than the current subversion pure Python simplejson decoder, and markedly slower than simplejson or YAML C decoders.

The example RSON decoder is quite flexible, and there is also an example parser for a superset of RSON that has XML semantics instead of JSON semantics.

To see an example of RSON in action, you can look at the default rst2pdf default stylesheet.

Project discussion and updates happens in the rson-discuss google group. Maybe at some point I will have time to add some more wiki pages and to improve the manual (PDF).

The current version of RSON is 0.9, which has the following differences from 0.08:

• Refactored, distributed as a package, placed under PyPI
• Works with Python 3

0.08 had the following differences from 0.06:

• No manual changes (manual is still at 0.06).
• API enhanced to allow easier subclassing of some of the parser pieces.
• rsonmac.py example added in tools (in subversion) to show example of macro and include file processing.

0.06 had the following differences from 0.05:

• Trailing commas are no longer supported. In RSON indented syntax, they are meaningless, and in JSON syntax, they are not necessary.
• Keys for key/value pairs are restricted to strings. Use-cases for more complicated keys are few and far between in configuration files.
• The manual has been changed to reflect these changes, and also to improve the examples and syntax definitions.

0.05 had the following differences from 0.04:

• No manual changes (manual is still at 0.04)
• Some bugs fixed that affected the ability of client code to configure the handling of object types.

0.04 had the following differences from 0.03:

• Cosmetic changes in the manual
• A corner case where a correct document could incorrectly throw an exception was fixed.
• The ability of client code to configure the handling of object and array types was improved.

0.03 had the following differences from 0.02:

• Manual enhanced with more examples and syntax description
• Code modified so that equal sign can be used with non-string scalars

0.02 was the first version with a manual.