Unified Syntax Tree - a generic structured data building block standard
“Unist” is short for “Unified Syntax Tree” - it is intended to function as an Abstract Base Class for more purpose-built extensions. It is a basic, JSON-based, hierarchical organizational scheme.
At it’s core, it’s a tree built around nodes:
interface Node {
type: string
data: Data?
position: Position?
}Nodes may contain other nodes. If so, they extend the Parent interface:
interface Parent <: Node {
children: [Node]
}The purpose of the Unist is to provide a common basic hierarchical structure to create utilities that can be then reused between different applications of Unist. Examples would be utilities for tree traversal, path-finding, find, filter, et cetera.
Although the word Ontology doesn’t appear anywhere in the GitHub, Unist feels very similar to the concept of an Ontology Representation Language.
Some Markdown Processers (like Remark) are capable of putting out HTML and/or Unist-structured JSON. Markdown in Unist is called “Mdast”.
The API for Notion reveals their data structure is either Unist-compliant or is heavily inspired by Unist.
Example Markdown Implementation (from Remark)
Input
> Alpha bravo charlie.Output
{
type: 'blockquote',
children: [{
type: 'paragraph',
children: [{type: 'text', value: 'Alpha bravo charlie.'}]
}]
}Source
https://github.com/syntax-tree/unist