This is yajl-tcl, a direct Tcl interface to the yajl JSON generator library.

Version 1.8.1

This package is a freely available open source package under the "Berkeley" license, same as Tcl. You can do virtually anything you like with it, such as modifying it, redistributing it, and selling it either in whole or in part. See the file "LICENSE" for complete information.

yajl-tcl was written by Karl Lehenbauer of FlightAware. This company-funded work was generously open-sourced.

Using yajl-tcl

package require yajltcl

Example

Create a yajl-tcl object...

yajl create x -beautify 1

or

set x [yajl create #auto]

then generate some json

x map_open string type string FeatureCollection string features array_open 

proc json_major_airport {obj icao lat lon} {
    $obj map_open string type string Feature string geometry map_open string type string Point string coordinates array_open number $lon number $lat array_close map_close string properties map_open string label string $icao map_close map_close
}

json_major_airport x KABQ 35.0401944 -106.6091944
json_major_airport x KBUR 34.206667 -118.3586667 

x array_close map_close

puts [x get]

produces...

{
	"type": "FeatureCollection",
	"features": [
		{
			"type": "Feature",
			"geometry": {
				"type": "Point",
				"coordinates": [
					-106.6091944,
					35.0401944
				]
			},
			"properties": {
				"label": "KABQ"
			}
		},
		{
			"type": "Feature",
			"geometry": {
				"type": "Point",
				"coordinates": [
					-118.3586667,
					34.206667
				]
			},
			"properties": {
				"label": "KBUR"
			}
		}
	]
}

x reset - prepare the object for reuse

or

x delete - delete the object and all of its internal data

Yajl-tcl Quick Reference

Create the object as above.

Invoke the object with one or more methods. They are invoked left to right. Some have no arguments and some have one.

Methods

array_open, array_close, bool, clear, double, integer, map_close, map_open, null, number, string, free, get, reset, or delete

array_open - start an array

array_close - end an array

clear - clears the buffer but doesn't reset the parser's state (not sure how useful this is)

bool - add a boolean, value follows

double - add a double precision floating point value, value follows

integer - add an integer value, value follows

number - add a numeric value, value follows

Note that with respect to "double" yajl internally formats that only with "%g" providing six digits of precision and this is not currently configurable via YAJL. If you need higher precision, use "format" or equivalent, coupled with yajl-tcl's "number" method.

map_open - open a map

map_close - close a map

null - insert a null value

free - nothing yet

get - get the JSON generated so far. clears the generator buffer. maintains state so you can keep going, i.e. stream it.

reset - free, reallocate and configure the yajl generator object for reuse

delete - delete the object and all of its internal data

Parsing

As of version 1.2, yajl-tcl can also parse.

set list [$object parse $json]

List will be as above.

Alternatively, you can use ::yajl::json2dict to turn JSON into a key-value list that be loaded into an array. As an example, the JSON from the prior section can be parsed using code similar to the following:

set jsonkv [::yajl::json2dict $json]
puts "raw = $jsonkv"
array set myArray $jsonkv
puts "outerType = $myArray(type)"
foreach featurekv $myArray(features) {
    unset -nocomplain featureAry
    array set featureAry $featurekv
    puts "innerType = $featureAry(type), geom = $featureAry(geometry)"
}

That will output the following:

raw = type FeatureCollection features {{type Feature geometry 
  {type Point coordinates {-106.6091944 35.0401944}} properties {label KABQ}}
  {type Feature geometry {type Point coordinates {-118.3586667
  34.206667}} properties {label KBUR}}}
outerType = FeatureCollection
innerType = Feature, geom = type Point coordinates {-106.6091944 35.0401944}
innerType = Feature, geom = type Point coordinates {-118.3586667 34.206667}

A slight variation of json2dict is yajl::json2dict_ex. This version turns JSON into a fully traversable Tcl dictionary by virtue of that it expands JSON arrays into key-value pairs, as might be done with a map, where the keys are synthesized sequential integers starting from zero.

After having parsed a list of channels returned from the Slack API, for instance, to fetch the ID of the third member of the fourth channel you might say dict get $dict channels 3 members 2. See the tests file json2dict_ex.test included in the distro for a nice big JSON structure that hopefully will make clear what's going on.

Parsing to huddle

You can use ::yajl::json2huddle to turn JSON into a huddle string. Let's use the json from the prior examples:

set myhuddle [::yajl::json2huddle $json]
huddle set myhuddle features 0 geometry coordinates 0 -99.9999
puts [huddle jsondump $myhuddle]

That will output the following:

{
  "type": "FeatureCollection",
  "features": [
    {
      "type": "Feature",
      "geometry": {
        "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": [
          -99.9999,
          35.0401944
        ]
      },
      "properties": {"label": "KABQ"}
    },
    {
      "type": "Feature",
      "geometry": {
        "type": "Point",
        "coordinates": [
          -118.3586667,
          34.206667
        ]
      },
      "properties": {"label": "KBUR"}
    }
  ]
}

Yajl Library Routines

add_array_to_json jsonObject arrayName - append a Tcl array into the specified json object by doing a JSON map open and then storing the array as key-value pairs and then doing a map close.

Example usage:

set json [yajl create #auto]
add_array_to_json $json array
puts [$json get]
$json delete

array_to_json arrayName - return the contents of the array as JSON text

add_pgresult_tuples_to_json - append a JSON array of JSON objects of a Postgres result, one array entry per tuple in the result, with the non-null values set in each row object.

pg_select_to_json - given a postgres connection handle and a sql select statement, perform the select and return the results of the select as JSON text.

Bugs?

About for sure. None known at this time.

Contents

Makefile.in Makefile template. The configure script uses this file to produce the final Makefile.

README This file

aclocal.m4 Generated file. Do not edit. Autoconf uses this as input when generating the final configure script. See "tcl.m4" below.

configure Generated file. Do not edit. This must be regenerated with autoconf anytime configure.in or tclconfig/tcl.m4 changes.

configure.in Configure script template. Autoconf uses this file as input to produce the final configure script.

generic/yajltcl.c YAJL Tcl interface routines. generic/yajltcl.h include file generic/tclyajltcl.c Init routines.

tclconfig/ This directory contains various template files that build the configure script. They should not need modification.

install-sh Program used for copying binaries and script files to their install locations.

tcl.m4 Collection of Tcl autoconf macros. Included by aclocal.m4 to define SC_* macros.

Building

Unix

Building under most UNIX systems is easy, just run the configure script and then run make. You will need to have the yajl library itself already installed, since it is not included with yajl-tcl. In some cases, you may also need to specify where your Tcl library directory is located.

$ cd yajl-tcl
$ autoconf
$ ./configure
$ make
$ sudo make install

FreeBSD

$ sudo portinstall devel/yajl
$ cd yajl-tcl
$ autoconf
$ ./configure --with-tcl=/usr/local/lib/tcl8.6
$ make
$ sudo make install

Debian/Raspbian

$ sudo apt-get install pkg-config libyajl-dev
$ cd yajl-tcl
$ autoconf
$ ./configure --with-tcl=/usr/lib/tcl8.6
$ make
$ sudo make install

Windows

yajl-tcl has not been built under Windows at this time.

The recommended method to build extensions under Windows is to use the Msys + Mingw build process. This provides a Unix-style build while generating native Windows binaries. Using the Msys + Mingw build tools means that you can use the same configure script as per the Unix build to create a Makefile.

If you have VC++, then you may wish to use the files in the win subdirectory and build the extension using just VC++.

Instructions for using the VC++ makefile are written in the first part of the Makefile.vc file.

Installation

make install

yajltcl installs like so:

         $exec_prefix
          /       \
        lib       bin
         |         |
   PACKAGEx.y   (dependent .dll files on Windows)
         |
  pkgIndex.tcl (.so|.dll files)

The main .so|.dll library file gets installed in the versioned PACKAGE directory, which is OK on all platforms because it will be directly referenced with by 'load' in the pkgIndex.tcl file. Dependent DLL files on Windows must go in the bin directory (or other directory on the user's PATH) in order for them to be found.

Yajl-tcl has not been tested with Windows so none of the above may be true.

FlightAware

FlightAware has released over a dozen applications (under the free and liberal BSD license) into the open source community. FlightAware's repositories are available on GitHub for public use, discussion, bug reports, and contribution. Read more at https://flightaware.com/about/code/