= Dsv

A delimiter-separated values library for ruby.

== Description

Dsv provides support for an expanded delimiter-separated values format that
supports basic data types, including arrays and hashes. The expanded syntax is
intended to translate to and from JSON cleanly.

== Usage

Use like most serialization libraries:

  require 'dsv'
  
  obj = {'key' => 'value'}
  str = Dsv.dump(obj)          # => '{key:value}'
  Dsv.load(str)                # => {'key' => 'value'}

The syntax is delimiter-separated values, with additional support for basic types: nil, bool, numbers, strings, arrays, hashes.

  simple  = ['a', 'b', 'c']
  simple.to_dsv
  # => '[a,b,c]'

  complex = {
    'nul' => nil,
    'bol' => true,
    'num' => 1, 
    'str' => 'string',
    'ary' => ['a', 'b', 'c'],
    'hsh' => {'key' => 'value'}
  }
  
  complex.to_dsv
  # => '{nul:nil,bol:true,num:1,str:string,ary:[a,b,c],hsh:{key:value}}'

Types are differentiated from strings based on the first character in the value.  Hash keys are always interpreted as strings for compatibility with JSON.

  Dsv.load '[1,\1,{key:value},\{key:value}]'
  # => [1, '1', {'key' => 'value'}, '{key:value}']

== Installation

Dsv is available as a gem through {Gemcutter}[http://rubygems.org/gems/dsv].

  % gem install dsv

== Info

Copyright (c) 2010, Simon Chiang
License:: {MIT-Style}[link:files/MIT-LICENSE.html]