Trio

Overview

Trio stands for "Text Record Input/Output". Trio is a simple plain text format used for hand authoring Haystack data. It is derived as a semi-subset of YAML. It is the primary format for authoring the tag definitions on the Project Haystack site itself.

Trio is represented by the def filetype:trio.

Format

Trio uses a simple plain text format designed for easy editing by hand:

• entities are separated by lines beginning with "-", the lines can have as many dashes as you want followed by a newline (a line with just dashes)
• each entity is defined by one or more tags
• one line is used per tag formatted as "name:val"
• if no value is specified, the value is assumed to be Marker
• the value is encoded using the same grammar as Zinc
• string values may be left unquoted if they begin with a non-ASCII Unicode character or contain only the "safe" chars: A-Z, a-z, or underbar
• booleans may be encoded as true/false or Zinc T/F; however if using nested lists/dicts then you must the Zinc T/F syntax
• if a newline follows the colon, then the value is an indented multi-line string terminated by the first non-indented line
• nested data may be encoded with Zinc or Trio as a multi-line string prefixed with the string value "Zinc:" or "Trio:" on the tag line
• nested lists may be encoded in Zinc as a multi-line string prefixed with "[" on the tag line; the multi-line string should be parsed as follows: 1) skip lines starting with "//", 2) strip newlines, and 3) parse a zinc <val> production
• can use // as line comment

Here is a simple example:

dis: "Site 1"
site
area: 3702ft²
geoAddr: "100 Main St, Richmond, VA"
geoCoord: C(37.5458,-77.4491)
strTag: OK if unquoted if only safe chars
summary:
  This is a string value that spans multiple
  lines with two or more space characters
---
name: "Site 2"
site
summary:
  Entities are separated by one more dashes

Here are examples with nested data values:

// Zinc
ver:"3.0"
type,val
"list",[1,2,3]
"dict",{dis:"Dict!" foo}
"grid",<<
  ver:"2.0"
  a,b
  1,2
  3,4
  >>
"scalar","simple string"

// Trio
type:list
val:[1,2,3]
---
type:dict
val:{ dis:"Dict!" foo}
---
type:grid
val:Zinc:
  ver:"3.0"
  b,a
  20,10

// nested list
def: ^myEquip
children: [
  {fan, motor, equip},
  {damper, actuator, equip},
  ]