diff --git a/edn.html.markdown b/edn.html.markdown new file mode 100644 index 00000000..655c20f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/edn.html.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,108 @@ +--- +language: edn +filename: learnedn.edn +contributors: + - ["Jason Yeo", "https://github.com/jsyeo"] +--- + +Extensible Data Notation or EDN for short is a format for serializing data. + +The notation is used internally by Clojure to represent programs and it also +used as a data transfer format like JSON. Though it is more commonly used in +Clojure land, there are implementations of EDN for many other languages. + +The main benefit of EDN over JSON and YAML is that it is extensible, which we +will see how it is extended later on. + +```Clojure +; Comments start with a semicolon. +; Anythng after the semicolon is ignored. + +;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; +;;; Basic Types ;;; +;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; + +nil ; also known in other languages as null + +; Booleans +true +false + +; Strings are enclosed in double quotes +"hungarian breakfast" +"farmer's cheesy omelette" + +; Characters are preceeded by backslashes +\g \r \a \c \e + +; Keywords start with a colon. They behave like enums. Kind of +; like symbols in Ruby. +:eggs +:cheese +:olives + +; Symbols are used to represent identifiers. They start with #. +; You can namespace symbols by using /. Whatever preceeds / is +; the namespace of the name. +#spoon +#kitchen/spoon ; not the same as #spoon +#kitchen/fork +#github/fork ; you can't eat with this + +; Integers and floats +42 +3.14159 + +; Lists are sequences of values +(:bun :beef-patty 9 "yum!") + +; Vectors allow random access +[:gelato 1 2 -2] + +; Maps are associative data structures that associates the key with its value +{:eggs 2 + :lemon-juice 3.5 + :butter 1} + +; You're not restricted to using keywords as keys +{[1 2 3 4] "tell the people what she wore", + [5 6 7 8] "the more you see the more you hate"} + +; You may use commas for readability. They are treated as whitespaces. + +; Sets are collections that contain unique elements. +#{:a :b 88 "huat"} + +;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; +;;; Tagged Elements ;;; +;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; + +; EDN can be extended by tagging elements with # symbols. + +#MyYelpClone/MenuItem {:name "eggs-benedict" :rating 10} + +; Let me explain this with a clojure example. Suppose I want to transform that +; piece of edn into a MenuItem record. + +(defrecord MenuItem [name rating]) + +; To transform edn to clojure values, I will need to use the built in EDN +; reader, edn/read-string + +(edn/read-string "{:eggs 2 :butter 1 :flour 5}") +; -> {:eggs 2 :butter 1 :flour 5} + +; To transform tagged elements, define the reader function and pass a map +; that maps tags to reader functions to edn/read-string like so + +(edn/read-string {:readers {'MyYelpClone/MenuItem map->menu-item}} + "#MyYelpClone/MenuItem {:name \"eggs-benedict\" :rating 10}") +; -> #user.MenuItem{:name "eggs-benedict", :rating 10} + +``` + +# References + +- [EDN spec](https://github.com/edn-format/edn) +- [Implementations](https://github.com/edn-format/edn/wiki/Implementations) +- [Tagged Elements](http://www.compoundtheory.com/clojure-edn-walkthrough/)