Ask HN: Object Golf – Shortest way to serialize this object?

1 point

8 years ago

I'm trying to find the most character efficient way to serialize an object.

Using the JSON object at https://json.org/example.html (360 characters with all unnecessary spacing removed), what's the fewest characters it can be reduced to using any plaintext data serialization language (keeping the original keys)?

Using MODL [1], I've got it down to 295 characters [2]. Very interested to hear of any ways to describe it using fewer characters.

1. http://modl.uk (a language I designed)

2. The MODL object:

?=SGML:language;glossary(title=example glossary;GlossDiv(title=S;GlossList(GlossEntry(ID=%0;SortAs=%0;GlossTerm=Standard Generalized Markup %1.i;Acronym=%0;Abbrev=ISO 8879\:1986;GlossDef(para=A meta-markup %1, used to create markup %1s such as DocBook.;GlossSeeAlso[GML;XML]);GlossSee=markup))))