Discussion: Including Column Types in TOON Format

[andrewshandy]

I’d like to start a discussion about the idea of incorporating column types into the TOON format, and I’m curious whether anyone has already explored this or sees potential value in it.

Idea

Extend the TOON header syntax to include type annotations.

For example, a block that currently looks like:

hikes[3]{id,name,distanceKm,elevationGain,companion,wasSunny}:
1,Blue Lake Trail,7.5,320,ana,true
2,Ridge Overlook,9.2,540,luis,false
3,Wildflower Loop,5.1,180,sam,true

could instead include explicit types:

hikes[3]{id:int,name:str,distanceKm:float,elevationGain:int,companion:str,wasSunny:bool}:
1,Blue Lake Trail,7.5,320,ana,true
2,Ridge Overlook,9.2,540,luis,false
3,Wildflower Loop,5.1,180,sam,true

Potential Benefits

LLMs occasionally hallucinate or infer the wrong types. For example:

• "123" instead of 123
• "true" instead of true

Explicit types might help stabilize outputs, improve validation, and make downstream tooling more robust.

Potential Drawbacks

• Slightly increased token usage
• Adds some parsing complexity

Discussion

This is just an idea at this stage. I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether type annotations align with TOON’s goals, or whether there’s a cleaner way to introduce optional typing without compromising the simplicity of the format.