Cookbooks
JavaScript
Chapter 10. Data Formats and Serialization
Working with TOML

JavaScript:
Working with TOML

How to:

To work with TOML in JavaScript, you’ll need a parser like @iarna/toml. First, install it: npm install @iarna/toml. Then, parse a TOML string to a JavaScript object or stringify a JavaScript object to TOML format.

const toml = require('@iarna/toml');

// Parse TOML string to JS object
const tomlStr = `
title = "TOML Example"

[database]
server = "192.168.1.1"
ports = [ 8001, 8001, 8002 ]
`;

const parsedData = toml.parse(tomlStr);
console.log(parsedData);

// Convert JS object to TOML string
const jsObject = {
  title: "TOML Example",
  database: {
    server: "192.168.1.1",
    ports: [8001, 8001, 8002]
  }
};

const tomlString = toml.stringify(jsObject);
console.log(tomlString);

Deep Dive

TOML was first released in 2013 by Tom Preston-Werner, a co-founder of GitHub. It was designed to supersede other formats, like INI, by being more standardized and easier to parse. JSON and YAML are alternatives but can be too complex or too flexible. TOML’s advantage is in static configuration where a simple, clear format is preferred. Its design allows for straightforward mapping into a hash table, with keys and values corresponding to property names and their values. For wider adoption, you might need to integrate tools that can convert between TOML and other formats due to varying ecosystem support.

See Also

Working with JSONWorking with XML