cirquery

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cirquery (Canonical Intermediate Representation Query) is a TypeScript library that provides a human-friendly query DSL for filtering JSON data, with a common intermediate representation (CIR) that can be adapted to multiple backends.

🔬 JSON Playground

Try cirquery instantly in your browser—no installation required.
Drag and drop your JSON files and execute queries in real-time.

👉 Launch Playground

✨ Features

• Human-Readable Query Language: Write intuitive search queries with natural syntax
• Common Intermediate Representation (CIR): Normalize queries into a backend-agnostic format for reusability
• Type-Safe: Fully typed TypeScript implementation
• Extensible: Easily add custom adapters or field search capabilities
• Multi-Language Support: Built-in accent folding and case normalization

🚀 Installation

From npm

npm install cirquery

• npm package: cirquery@npm

For local development and testing, see the 🛠️ Development section below.

📖 Quick Start

Query Syntax Examples

cirquery uses an intuitive DSL (Domain-Specific Language) to query JSON data. Here are common patterns:

Basic Logical Operations

Supports equality (=), inequality (!=), numeric comparisons (<, >, <=, >=), and logical operators (AND, OR).

category = "drink" AND price < 10
is_alcoholic = true OR contains_citrus = true

Text Search

Use colon (:) as shorthand for contains:

name:"Tonic"

Use function syntax for prefix/suffix matching:

startsWith(name, "Gin")
endsWith(garnish, "peel")

Array Quantifiers

Query array elements with any (at least one element matches) or all (all elements match):

any(ingredients, name = "rum") all(ingredients, type = "spirit")

Access nested properties with dot notation:

ingredients.name:"gin"

Negation and Grouping

Use NOT for negation and parentheses () for precedence:

NOT (year >= 2000)
is_alcoholic = false OR (type = "spirit" AND NOT is_carbonated = true)

JavaScript/TypeScript Usage

import { parse, normalize, buildPredicate } from 'cirquery';

// Parse DSL and normalize to CIR
const { ast } = parse('category = "cocktail" AND price < 15');
const cir = normalize(ast);

// Generate predicate function from CIR
const predicate = buildPredicate(cir);

// Filter data
const data = [
  { category: 'cocktail', price: 12, name: 'Mojito' },
  { category: 'wine', price: 20, name: 'Chardonnay' }
];

const results = data.filter(predicate);
console.log(results); // [{ category: 'cocktail', price: 12, name: 'Mojito' }]

CLI Usage

# Launch REPL
npx cirquery

# Query from stdin
echo '{"name":"test","category":"drink"}' | npx cirquery 'category = "drink"'

📚 Documentation

• DSL Syntax Reference - Detailed query language syntax
• CIR Specification - Intermediate representation types
• Normalization Design - DSL to CIR conversion rules
• Examples - Practical query examples

🛠️ Development

Prerequisites

• Node.js 22+
• npm or pnpm

Setup

git clone https://github.com/cirquery/cirquery.git
cd cirquery
npm install
npm run build
npm test

Local Development Methods

For contributors who want to test locally or develop new features:

Method A: npm link (Recommended)

1. Create link in repository root:

   npm ci
   npm run build
   npm link

2. Link from your project:

   npm link cirquery

3. Import as usual:

   import 'cirquery';

Unlink:

npm unlink cirquery && npm unlink --global cirquery

Method B: Relative Install (Simple)

npm install /absolute/path/to/cirquery

Note: This includes all source files. For production-like testing, use Method A.

Method C: Pack and Install (Production-like)

1. Generate tarball:

   npm run build
   npm pack

2. Install in your project:

   npm install /path/to/cirquery-0.2.1.tgz

Directory Structure

├── src/                 # Source code
│   ├── parser/          # DSL parser
│   ├── cir/            # CIR normalization & evaluation
│   ├── cli/            # CLI tool
│   └── adapters/       # Backend adapters
├── test/               # Tests
├── docs/               # Documentation
├── examples/           # Sample data & queries
└── scripts/            # Development scripts

Scripts

• npm run build - Build TypeScript (ESM/CJS)
• npm test - Run tests
• npm run typecheck - Type checking
• npm run lint - Run ESLint
• npm run format - Format with Prettier

🔧 Architecture

[DSL] → [Parser] → [AST] → [Normalize] → [CIR] → [Evaluator/Adapters]

1. DSL: Human-friendly query language
2. Parser: Parse DSL into Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)
3. Normalize: Transform AST into Common Intermediate Representation (CIR)
4. Evaluator/Adapters: Execute CIR (JavaScript evaluation, DB conversion, etc.)

🎯 Roadmap

v0.1 (Completed)

• Basic DSL syntax (logical operations, comparisons, text search, quantifiers)
• CIR normalization (De Morgan's laws, NOT optimization)
• JavaScript evaluator
• Accent folding & case normalization

v0.2 (Current)

• Multi-level array path shorthand support

v0.3 (Planned)

• Explicit OR/AND in ValueList
• Full-field search (ANYFIELD)
• Additional backend adapters (MongoDB, SQLite)

🤝 Contributing

Bug reports, feature requests, and pull requests are welcome!

1. Fork this repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Create a Pull Request

See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Chevrotain - Parser generator
• Vitest - Test framework
• tsup - TypeScript bundler