Introduction
The evolution of data formats tells a fascinating story about how technology adapts to meet our changing needs. From the hu...
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Thank you for the article, would you mind adding our JSON to TOON tool in your article?
scalevise.com/json-toon-converter
Hi Ali ,
Sure , will do .
Thanks
Sreeni
Hi Ali ,
I have added your TOON tool in my blog .
Thanks
Sreeni
Thanks a million 🙏🏼🙌
You are welcome.
In my opinion, INI is more powerful than JSON:
Well, it’s kind of a yes and no. The .INI file format is definitely more familiar to Windows users, and it’s simple enough for basic configuration needs.
But that simplicity can be a double-edged sword .INI files can get messy and error-prone, especially when you try to handle complex or nested settings. That’s why most developers eventually moved on to XML, JSON, and YAML formats that are more structured, flexible, and platform-independent.
That said, if .INI fits your use case, go for it. But when it comes to AI or agentic applications, where efficiency and cost really matter, TOON is the smarter choice it’s lightweight and cost-effective.
Thanks,
Sreeni
It loosk like a CSV.
Why not just use a CSV?
Hi There ,
The idea is to reduce the tokens ... so if we use CSV format then comma counted as the token too. And for LLM we can pass any suitable format with optimized tokens .
Thanks
Sreeni
TOON has commas too, the only difference with tabular data is that TOON's header line has more characters.
TOON:
users[3]{id,name,role,email}:CSV:
id,name,role,emailWhat happens when the data has a comma in it does it keep the quotes to prevent the data comma to be seen as a new column?
I'll just leave this here for people still taking this seriously 👀
SLOP Sreeni Learned Only Post .. hope this SLOP makes sense for you
dev -> json, dev-ops -> yaml, TOON -> let LLM's guys debate =))
The point is simple: JSON → TOON transformations exist because transformers (LLMs) need them.
Every application or technology requires its own perspective on the data.
SLOP Share the Link Of that Post .. hope this slop makes more sense
It's look like another CSV inherit for me
Exactly, you’re right. The main goal is to reduce the token count while preserving the essential, structured, and meaningful information
Drastically reduces the tokens and file size.
Well , TOON Definitely reduces the tokens ... what you mean file size ... in AI Application we just pass the context to LLM to inference ... i do not think we save this in file .. however your statement is valid
toontools.vercel.app
The official converter with all the known formats
i am not following , what you mean all formats ?. we need final target as TOON
Nice point. However, since LLMs operate on tokens, our goal should be to target TOON it helps reduce the number of tokens (and therefore the data size). Moreover, since most APIs and MCP servers already use JSON, a single conversion to TOON should be sufficient in my opinion.
Yes and I hope they'll implement it soon
Honestly, TOON only really stands out when you’re converting JSON — with YAML or CSV, the difference is barely noticeable. That said, it’s fun to experiment with, and I actually made a little tool that converts JSON, YAML, or CSV into TOON json2toon.co/
wow yes we need a whole new format for this
oh wait
The one you posted is JSON right .. we need TOON without all { and , and other chars :)
I've just added support for TOON encoding to my converter utility. mmalcek.github.io/bafi/ as easy as ./bafi -i input.json -t "?{{ toTOON . }}" :)
protobuf makes more sense right ?
Well protobuf is gRPC service definition format.. that is nothing to do with LLMS context format..