structa

structa is a small, semi-magical utility for discerning the "overall structure" of large data files. Typically this is something like a document oriented database in JSON format, or a CSV file of a database dump, or a YAML document.

Usage

Use from the command line:

structa <filename>

The usual --help and --version switches are available for more information. The full documentation may also help understanding the myriad switches!

Examples

The People in Space API shows the number of people currently in space, and their names and craft name:

curl -s http://api.open-notify.org/astros.json | structa

Output:

{
    'message': str range="success" pattern="success",
    'number': int range=10,
    'people': [
        {
            'craft': str range="ISS".."Tiangong",
            'name': str range="Akihiko Hoshide".."Thomas Pesquet"
        }
    ]
}

The Python Package Index (PyPI) provides a JSON API for packages. You can feed the JSON of several packages to structa to get an idea of the overall structure of these records (when structa is given multiple inputs on the same invocation, it assumes all have a common source):

for pkg in numpy scipy pandas matplotlib structa; do
    curl -s https://pypi.org/pypi/$pkg/json > $pkg.json
done
structa numpy.json scipy.json pandas.json matplotlib.json structa.json

Output:

{
    'info': { str: value },
    'last_serial': int range=11.9M..13.1M,
    'releases': {
        str range="0.1".."3.5.1": [
            {
                'comment_text': str,
                'digests': {
                    'md5': str pattern="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
                    'sha256': str pattern="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
                },
                'downloads': int range=-1,
                'filename': str,
                'has_sig': bool,
                'md5_digest': str pattern="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
                'packagetype': str range="bdist_wheel".."sdist",
                'python_version': str range="2.4".."source",
                'requires_python': value,
                'size': int range=39.3K..118.4M,
                'upload_time': str of timestamp range=2006-01-09 14:02:01..2022-03-10 16:45:20 pattern="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S",
                'upload_time_iso_8601': str of timestamp range=2009-04-06 06:19:25..2022-03-10 16:45:20 pattern="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f%z",
                'url': URL,
                'yanked': bool,
                'yanked_reason': value
            }
        ]
    },
    'urls': [
        {
            'comment_text': str range="",
            'digests': {
                'md5': str pattern="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
                'sha256': str pattern="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
            },
            'downloads': int range=-1,
            'filename': str,
            'has_sig': bool,
            'md5_digest': str pattern="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
            'packagetype': str range="bdist_wheel".."sdist",
            'python_version': str range="cp310".."source",
            'requires_python': value,
            'size': int range=47.2K..55.6M,
            'upload_time': str of timestamp range=2021-10-27 23:57:01..2022-03-10 16:45:20 pattern="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S",
            'upload_time_iso_8601': str of timestamp range=2021-10-27 23:57:01..2022-03-10 16:45:20 pattern="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f%z",
            'url': URL,
            'yanked': bool,
            'yanked_reason': value
        }
    ],
    'vulnerabilities': [ empty ]
}

The Ubuntu Security Notices database contains the list of all security issues in releases of Ubuntu (warning, this one takes some time to analyze and eats about a gigabyte of RAM while doing so):

curl -s https://usn.ubuntu.com/usn-db/database.json | structa

Output:

{
    str range="1430-1".."4630-1" pattern="dddd-d": {
        'action'?: str,
        'cves': [ str ],
        'description': str,
        'id': str range="1430-1".."4630-1" pattern="dddd-d",
        'isummary'?: str,
        'releases': {
            str range="artful".."zesty": {
                'allbinaries'?: {
                    str: { 'version': str }
                },
                'archs'?: {
                    str range="all".."source": {
                        'urls': {
                            URL: {
                                'md5': str pattern="xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
                                'size': int range=20..1.2G
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                'binaries': {
                    str: { 'version': str }
                },
                'sources': {
                    str: {
                        'description': str,
                        'version': str
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        'summary': str,
        'timestamp': float of timestamp range=2012-04-27 12:57:41..2020-11-11 18:01:48,
        'title': str
    }
}