Introduction

Scuff is a language suite with a slick, efficient, flexible syntax, unique features and useful tools.

Its purpose is to represent structured data effectively. Scuff’s greatest strengths are its syntactic simplicity and reliable flexibility. It comes with a Python API and a simple command line tool for moving data between JSON syntax, Python’s and its own.

One excellent use for Scuff is to encode and parse configuration files.

Scuff implements its own custom lexer, recursive-descent parser and transpiler to read and process data. Though written in Python, the parser is immune from Python’s recursion limit.

Installation

To install Scuff and its tools for Python from the Python Package Index, run the following in the command line:

$ python -m pip install scuff

Grammar

my_favorite_number = 42
my_favorite_color "Magenta"
is_but_a_flesh_wound yes

set_to_null =
also_null
but_this_has_a_value 15

Python Usage

Once you install Scuff, you can then import scuff as a Python module and use its tools:

>>> import scuff
>>> scuff.to_json('menu {border.color "#aa22bb", font.color "#cdcdcd"}')
'{"menu": {"border": {"color": "#aa22bb"}, "font": {"color": "#cdcdcd"}}}'

>>> type(scuff.to_py('Documents/file.conf'))
<class 'dict'>

>>> scuff.to_py('a.b ["c", "d"]')
{'a': {'b': ['c', 'd']}}

>>> scuff.parse('hovercraft ["eel" "eel" "eel" "eel"]')
<ast.Module object at 0x74b59c109710>
>>> print(scuff.dump(_))
Module(
  body=[
    Assign(
      targets=[
        Name(id='hovercraft')],
      value=List(
        elts=[
          Constant(value='eel'),
          Constant(value='eel'),
          Constant(value='eel'),
          Constant(value='eel')]))])

Command Line Usage

Scuff also comes with a command line tool for converting between formats:

usage: scuff [-h] [-j] [-p] [-a] [--debug] [-v] source [source ...]

positional arguments:
  source           The file path(s) or literal Scuff to process.

options:
  -h, --help       show this help message and exit
  -j, --to-json    Convert `source` to JSON.
  -p, --to-python  Convert `source` to Python.
  -a, --show-ast   Parse `source` and show its equivalent AST.
  --debug          Use debug mode. (Not implemented)
  -v, --version    show program's version number and exit

Multiple files and strings may be converted in multiple ways at once:

$ python -m scuff --to-json ~/.config/mybar/mybar.conf 'foo {a{b [1,{c 3}]}}'
{"field_order": ["hostname", "uptime", "cpu_usage", "cpu_temp", "mem_usage", "disk_usage", "battery", "net_stats", "datetime"], "field_icons": {"uptime": ["Up ", "\uf2f2 "], "cpu_usage": ["CPU ", "\uf3fd "], "cpu_temp": ["", "\uf06d "], "mem_usage": ["MEM ", "\uf2db "], "disk_usage": ["/: ", "\uf233 "], "battery": ["BAT ", "\uf242 "], "net_stats": ["", "\uf1eb"]}}

{"foo": {"a": {"b": [1, {"c": 3}]}}}