Baler

A tool for working with bale schemas and data.

Installing

Download one of the binaries from the releases page.

Example on linux:

wget https://github.com/ii8/baler/releases/download/v0.1.0/baler-linux-x86_64.gz
gunzip baler-linux-x86_64.gz
chmod +x baler-linux-x86_64
mv baler-linux-x86_64 /usr/local/bin/baler

Or use stack to build from source:

stack build
stack install

Schema validation

By default, baler will validate a schema from stdin and output its type with all binding calls reduced. You can also specify the file to read the schema from.

The -i option is used to specify where to look for included files, defaults to the current working directory.

baler [-i include_dir] [schema_file]

Encoding

With the encode option, baler will read data expressed in a diagnostic notation and convert it to binary using the bale encoding.

baler encode [input_file]

Decoding

The decode option can be used to convert binary data to the diagnostic notation according to a given schema.

The schema may also include other files from a given directory, defaults to the current working directory.

Both the schema and input data default to stdin, so at least one must be provided on the command line.

baler decode [-s schema_file] [-i include_dir] [data_file]

File inclusion

Baler will interpret include directives in schema files written as the word include followed by a double quoted filename. Baler behaves as if the contents of the file were encountered at the point of inclusion.

Include directives must come before any let bindings and types in each file.

include "some-file.bale"

The diagnostic notation

• uvs are written as normal decimal numbers: 51.
• Fixed size numbers are postfixed with a ' and their type: -2.31e4'f32.
• Tuples are written using braces { 1 2 }, words ending with colons before each item are ignored.
• Unions have their index and value separated by an @: 2 @ 12'u8.
• Arrays are enclosed in brackets: [ 12 3 1 ]
• Quotation marks can be used as a convenience for array u8: "abc".

As an example, for this schema:

tuple
  n: uv
  i: i64
  b: bool
  s: string
end

you can write:

{
  n: 12
  i: 99'i64
  b: 1@{}
  s: "lel"
}