JAV (Json At Valve)

A library and cli to validate and query .vdf (Valve Data Files) files.

Only the V1 version (text only) of the file format is currently supported.

Building

Currently this can't be compiled with MSVC, since this package relies on the braced-group within expressions GNU extension.

jav is implemented as single header library. To compile the project you need at least C++23.

# Build cli
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo
cmake --build build

# or, alternatively only build the library.
cmake -B build -DBUILD_CLI=OFF
cmake --build build

# Install to CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX (usually /usr)
# Change preferred location with `--prefix`.
cmake --install build

Usage

# in sample.vdf
# "toplevel" { "hello" "world" }

# Verifies that `sample.vdf` is valid.
jav sample.vdf # prints: "toplevel" { "hello" "world" }

# Query the `toplevel` key.
jav -q toplevel sample.vdf # prints: { "hello" "world" }

# Recursively find the value of a chain of keys.
jav -q toplevel -q hello sample.vdf # prints: "world"