Kriti Lang

A minimal json templating language inspired by Go's template language.

Kriti templates are a superset of JSON with path lookups, if/then/else expressions, loops, and some basic predicate and conditional operators.

Kriti expressions are wrapped in double curly brackets such as "http://wwww.google.com/{{$body.path}}". The Kriti evaluator takes Kriti template and a set of source json expressions paired with binders then uses them to construct a new json expression.

Kriti Expressions

Path Accessors

Values can be looked up in bound json expressions using the standard path lookup syntax:

{{ $body.foo.bar[0]['my key'] }}

• . is used to look up object fields
• [x] is used to lookup array indices
• ['a b c'] is used to lookup string literal object fields

If a variable is unbound, the kriti template fail and throw an exception. To prevent such failures, we provide an "optional" lookup operator:

{{ $body?.foo }}

This example will return a null if foo is not bound in $body. Optional lookups will immediately shortcircuit with null so that the following will not attempt any lookups past the unbound foo:

{{ $body?.foo.bar.baz }}

• foo? is used to optionally look up a variable.
• ?. is used to optionally look up object fields
• ?[x] is used to optionally lookup array indices
• ?['a b c'] is used to optionally lookup string literal object fields

Defaulting Operator

The defaulting operator ?? can be used to replace a null value with any other value. The expression null ?? true will evaluate to true. This is especially useful when used with path lookups:

$foo?.bar ?? true

Loops

The range identifier is used to declare for loops:

{{ range i, x := $.event.author.articles }}
  {{ x.title }}
{{ end }}

i and x above are binders for the index and value of the array element from $.event.author.articles. The index can be omitted by using an underscore in its place.

If Statements

Kriti supports if statements and > < == || and && operators.

{{ if x.published && (x.post_id > 100) }}
    {
      "id": {{x.id}},
      "title": {{x.title}}
    }
{{ else }}
    null
{{ end }}

Use elif for multiple conditionals.

{{ if x.published && (x.post_id > 100) }}
    {
      "id": {{x.id}},
      "title": {{x.title}}
    }
{{ elif x.published && (x.post_id <= 100) }}
    {
      "id": {{x.id}},
      "title": {{x.title}},
      "content": {{x.content}}
    }
{{ else }}
    null
{{ end }}

String Interpolation

Bound variables, booleans, integers, object/array lookups, and functions can be interpolated:

"http://www.{{$.domain}}.com/{{$.path}}"

"http://www.{{$.domain}}.com/{{ $?[1000] }}"

Library

The library exposes two function runKriti and runKritiWith, the type definitions of the function are:

runKriti :: Text -> [(Text, Value)] -> Either KritiErr Value

The first argument of the function is the template JSON, for example, we can use myTemplate as the first argument:

myTemplate :: Text
myTemplate =
    "{\
    \   'name': {{$.name.english}},\
    \   'id': {{$.id}},\
    \   'hp': {{$.base.HP}}\
    \}"

runKritiWith :: T.Text -> [(T.Text, J.Value)] -> Map.HashMap T.Text (J.Value -> Either CustomFunctionError J.Value) -> Either KritiError J.Value

runKritiWith has an additional argument, which takes a hashmap from name of the custon function to it's haskell definition

Library Usage Sample Program

To run the example, first clone this repository using the following command:

git clone git@github.com:hasura/kriti-lang.git

Now, run the following command:

cd kriti-lang
cabal new-run example

The second argument is a list of tuple of (Text, Value). The first element of the tuple is the binding to be used for the JSON object, i.e. for the above template we are using x as the JSON binding, so, x will bind to the JSON object. The second element of the tuple is of type Data.Aeson.Value (can be obtained by Data.Aeson.decode method).

The function runKriti will return Either KritiErr Value. If the parser is successful, then it will return Right Value, else it will return Left KritiErr which can be used for debugging.

Basic Functions Collection

The Kriti.CustomFunctions module defines functions that can be enabled by including in the Map given to runKritiWith.

There is also a collection of all these functions defined as basicFuncMap that can act as a Kriti stdlib or prelude.

For reference, these functions are listed here:

Function Name	Description	Example Template	Output
empty	Returns true if an object, array, or string is empty, if a number is 0, and true for null. Raises an error for booleans.	{"object": {{ empty({"a": 1}) }}, "string": {{ empty("") }}, "array": {{ empty([1]) }} }	{"array":false,"object":false,"string":true}
size	Returns the length of an array or string, the number of keys of an object, the value of a number, 1 for true and 0 for false, and 0 for null.	{"object": {{ size({"a": 1}) }}, "string": {{ size("asdf") }}, "array": {{ size([1]) }} }	{"array":1,"object":1,"string":4}
inverse	Reverses an array or string, leaves an object or null as-is, takes the reciprical of a number, and negates a bool.	{"string": {{ inverse("asdf") }}, "array": {{ inverse([1,2,3]) }}, "number": {{ inverse(4) }} }	{"array":[3,2,1],"number":0.25,"string":"fdsa"}
head	Takes the first element or character of an array or string. Throws an error if they are empty, and throws an error for all other types.	{"string": {{ head("asdf") }}, "array": {{ head([1,2,3]) }} }	{"array":1,"string":"a"}
tail	Drops the first element of an array or string. Throws an error for all other types.	{"string": {{ tail("asdf") }}, "array": {{ tail([1,2,3]) }} }	{"array":[2,3],"string":"sdf"}
toCaseFold	Converts a string to a normalized casing (useful for case-insensitive string comparison). Throws an error for non-strings.	{"string": {{toCaseFold("AbCd")}} }	{"string":"abcd"}
toLower	Converts a string to lower-case. Throws an error for non-strings.	{"string": {{toLower("AbCd")}} }	{"string":"abcd"}
toUpper	Converts a string to upper-case. Throws an error for non-strings.	{"string": {{toUpper("AbCd")}} }	{"string":"ABCD"}
toTitle	Converts a string to title-case. Throws an error for non-strings.	{"string": {{toTitle("AbCd")}} }	{"string":"Abcd"}
fromPairs	Convert an array like [ [a,b], [c,d] ... ] to an object like { a:b, c:d ... }	{"array": {{ fromPairs([["a",1],["b",2]]) }} }	{"array":{"a":1,"b":2}}
toPairs	Convert an object like { a:b, c:d ... } to an array like [ [a,b], [c,d] ... ].	{"object": {{ toPairs({"a": 1, "b": 2}) }} }	{"object":[["a",1],["b",2]]}
removeNulls	Removes null items from an array.	{"array": {{ removeNulls([1,null,3,null,5]) }} }	{"array":[1,3,5]}
concat	Concatenates a string, array, or object - for objects keys from right-most objects are preferred in a collision.	{"arrays": {{ concat([[1,2],[3,4]]) }}, "strings": {{ concat(["abc", "def", "g"]) }}, "objects": {{ concat([{"a":1, "b":2},{"b":3, "c":4} ] ) }} }	{"arrays":[1,2,3,4],"objects":{"a":1,"b":3,"c":4},"strings":"abcdefg"}

CLI Tool

The executable is a CLI tool which applies a transformation to a single json file:

➜ cabal run kriti -- --json test/data/eval/success/source.json --template test/data/eval/success/examples/example1.kriti
{"guid":"43a922da-9665-4099-8dfc-f9af369695a4"}

The binder for the source file can be changed wit the --bind flag.

Transformation Examples

JSON Input:

{
  "event": {
    "name": "Freddie Jones",
    "age": 27,
    "author": {
      "articles": [
        { "id": 0, "title": "The Elements", "length": 150, "published": true},
        { "id": 1, "title": "ARRL Handbook", "length": 1000, "published": true},
        { "id": 2, "title": "The Mars Trilogy", "length": 500, "published": false}
      ]
    }
  }
}

Template Example:

{
  "author": {
    "name": {{$.event.name}},
    "age": {{$.event.age}},
    "articles": [
{{ range _, x := $.event.author.articles }}
      {
        "id": {{x.id}},
        "title": {{x.title}}
      }
{{ end }}
    ]
  }
}

JSON Output:

{
  "author": {
    "name": "Freddie Jones",
    "age": 27,
    "articles": [
      {"id": 0, "title": "The Elements"},
      {"id": 1, "title": "ARRL Handbook"},
      {"id": 2, "title": "The Mars Trilogy"}
    ]
  }
}

Template Example 2:

{
  "author": {
    "name": {{$.event.name}},
    "age": {{$.event.age}},
    "articles": [
{{ range _, x := $.event.author.articles }}
  {{ if x.published }}
      {
        "id": {{x.id}},
        "title": {{x.title}}
      }
  {{ else }}
      null
  {{ end }}
{{ end }}
    ]
  }
}

JSON Output 2:

{
  "author": {
    "name": "Freddie Jones",
    "age": 27,
    "articles": [
      {"id": 0, "title": "The Elements"},
      {"id": 1, "title": "ARRL Handbook"},
      null
    ]
  }
}

Contributing

Thank you for considering to contribute to kriti-lang!

• We use ormolu for formatting. The minimum version of ormolu required is 0.3.0.0.
• Use GHC version 8.10.4 or above.
• Use cabal version 3.2.0.0 or above.