Examples

Basic conversion

bash

# JSON → TOON (auto-detected)
ctoon input.json

# TOON → JSON (auto-detected)
ctoon input.toon

# Explicit output file
ctoon input.json -o output.toon

Pretty-printed JSON output

bash

ctoon input.toon -o output.json --indent 4

Read from stdin

bash

cat data.json | ctoon -e -
echo '{"name":"Alice"}' | ctoon -e -

Custom delimiter

bash

# Use pipe as list delimiter
ctoon input.json --delimiter pipe

# Use tab as list delimiter
ctoon input.json --delimiter tab

Length markers

Useful when passing TOON to an LLM that benefits from knowing array sizes upfront:

bash

ctoon input.json --length-marker

Output example:

plaintext

items[#3]:
  - Alice
  - Bob
  - Carol

Stats output

bash

ctoon input.json --stats

Prints a summary to stderr:

plaintext

Input  (JSON): 1024 bytes
Output (TOON):  612 bytes
Savings:         40.2%