Parsing and Serialization Utilities

include/Utils/Formats/ and lib/Utils/Formats/ provide lightweight data format support for configuration, interchange, and debugging output.

Main components:

• SExpr for S-expression parsing.

• cJSON and json11 for JSON handling.

• toml for TOML configuration file parsing.

• pcomb/ for parser-combinator based parsers.

These helpers show up throughout Lotus in spec loaders, report generation, and small domain-specific parsers.

Choosing a format helper

Use the existing parser closest to the on-disk format instead of adding a new ad hoc decoder. Spec readers should validate required fields and report the source location or key that failed to parse. JSON and TOML are suited to structured configuration and interchange, while SExpr and pcomb are useful for compact, grammar-oriented internal languages.

See also Utility Libraries.