What is AXON

AXON is eXtended Object Notation (AXON). It’s a simple text based format for interchanging of objects, documents and data. There is railroad diagram in order to describe AXON.

It tries to combine the best of JSON, XML and YAML.

Creation of AXON had following objectives:

AXON is designed as text based format that has compact form and formatted form in both JSON/C and YAML/Python style for ease of developers.

AXON is an object notation for data, which are composed from atomic values by several rules of composition:

NameRuleExample
list[ V … V ] 
[1 3.14 3.25D ∞ -∞ ?]
tuple( V … V ) 
(true 12:00 2001-12-31 2001-12-31T12:00)
dict{ K:V … K:V } 
{alpha:1 beta:2 gamma:3 "other chars":4}
ordered dict[ K:V … K:V ] 
[alpha:1 beta:2 gamma:3 "other chars":4]
nodeN { N:V … N:V V … V } 
greek {alpha:123 beta:212 gamma:322}
primes {2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23}
tree {id:1 leaf{id:2 "AAA"} leaf{id:3 "BBB"}}

where N denotes a name, K denotes a key, V denotes a value.

Here is an example of AXON message:

statement formformatted expression form
    axon
      name: "AXON is eXtended Object Notation"
      short_name: "AXON"
      python_library: "pyaxon"
      atomic_values
        int: [0 -1 17]
        float: [3.1428 1.5e-17]
        decimal: [10D 1000.35D -1.25E+6D]
        bool: [true false]
        string: "abc абв 中文本"
        multiline_string: "one
    two
    three"
        date: 2012-12-31
        time: [12:30:34 12:35:12.000120 12:35+03]
        datetime: [2012-12-31T12:30 2012-12-31T12:35+03]
        binary: |QVhPTiBpcyBlWHRlbmRlZCBPYmplY3QgTm90YXRpb24=

      complex_values
        list: ["one" "two" "three"]
        dict: {
          one: 1
          three: 3
          two: 2}
        odered_dict: [
          one: 1
          three: 3
          two: 2]
        tuple: ("nodes" "edges")
        node: person
          name: "Alex"
          age: 32

    axon {
      name: "AXON is eXtended Object Notation"
      short_name: "AXON"
      python_library: "pyaxon"
      atomic_values {
        int: [0 -1 17]
        float: [3.1428 1.5e-17]
        decimal: [10D 1000.35D -1.25E+6D]
        bool: [true false]
        string: "abc абв 中文本"
        multiline_string: "one
    two
    three"
        date: 2012-12-31
        time: [12:30:34 12:35:12.000120 12:35+03]
        datetime: [2012-12-31T12:30 2012-12-31T12:35+03]
        binary: |QVhPTiBpcyBlWHRlbmRlZCBPYmplY3QgTm90YXRpb24=
    }
      complex_values {
        list: ["one" "two" "three"]
        dict: {
          one: 1
          three: 3
          two: 2}
        odered_dict: [
          one: 1
          three: 3
          two: 2]
        tuple: ("nodes" "edges")
        node: person {
          name: "Alex"
          age: 32}}}
compact expression form
    axon{name:"AXON is eXtended Object Notation" short_name:"AXON" python_library:"pyaxon"
    atomic_values{int:[0 -1 17] float:[3.1428 1.5e-17] decimal:[10D 1000.35D -1.25E+6D]
    bool:[true false] string:"abc абв 中文本" multiline_string:"one
    two
    three" date:2012-12-31 time:[12:30:34 12:35:12.000120 12:35+03]
    datetime:[2012-12-31T12:30 2012-12-31T12:35+03]
    binary:|QVhPTiBpcyBlWHRlbmRlZCBPYmplY3QgTm90YXRpb24=
    } complex_values{list:["one" "two" "three"] dict:{one:1 three:3 two:2}
    odered_dict:[one:1 two:2 three:3] tuple:("nodes" "edges") node:person{name:"Alex" age:32}}}

Python pyaxon library

pyaxon is an MIT Licensed python library for AXON.

There are some IPython notebooks.

Repository for AXON and pyaxon. Mirror on github.

Blog about AXON.

History of changes.

API Reference