A JSON interface beside the cscope line protocol

cscope’s line protocol separates fields with spaces and has no quoting. A reader cannot tell where a path with a space ends, and a path with a control character can break the row.

Decision

Ripscope keeps the line protocol unchanged and adds an opt-in --json mode. One-shot rows are [path, context, line, text], and sessions exchange newline-delimited JSON frames. JSON rows keep every byte, and text that is not UTF-8 is written as an array of byte values. The line protocol writes paths raw, as cscope does, and skips a row whose path holds a control character, with one warning per answer that points to --json.

Consequences

• The Neovim plugin and the Emacs package’s sessions use the JSON interface. Vim uses the line protocol through its built-in cscope support.
• Other integrations can use the JSON interface directly.

Considered options

• Escape paths inside line-protocol rows. Unmodified editors would open the escaped name literally.
• Replace the line protocol. It would break every existing cscope integration.