toon/benchmarks/results/retrieval-accuracy.md

Retrieval Accuracy

Accuracy across 4 LLMs on 154 data retrieval questions:

gpt-5-nano
  toon         ███████████████████░  96.1% (148/154)
  csv          ██████████████████░░  90.3% (139/154)
  yaml         ██████████████████░░  89.0% (137/154)
  json         ██████████████████░░  87.7% (135/154)
  xml          █████████████████░░░  83.8% (129/154)

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001
  yaml         ██████████░░░░░░░░░░  49.4% (76/154)
  toon         ██████████░░░░░░░░░░  48.1% (74/154)
  csv          ██████████░░░░░░░░░░  48.1% (74/154)
  json         █████████░░░░░░░░░░░  47.4% (73/154)
  xml          █████████░░░░░░░░░░░  46.8% (72/154)

gemini-2.5-flash
  csv          ██████████████████░░  87.7% (135/154)
  xml          █████████████████░░░  85.1% (131/154)
  toon         █████████████████░░░  83.8% (129/154)
  json         ████████████████░░░░  78.6% (121/154)
  yaml         ███████████████░░░░░  76.6% (118/154)

grok-4-fast-non-reasoning
  toon         ██████████░░░░░░░░░░  48.7% (75/154)
  json         ██████████░░░░░░░░░░  48.1% (74/154)
  xml          █████████░░░░░░░░░░░  47.4% (73/154)
  yaml         █████████░░░░░░░░░░░  46.8% (72/154)
  csv          █████████░░░░░░░░░░░  45.5% (70/154)

Advantage: TOON achieves 69.2% accuracy (vs JSON's 65.4%) while using 46.3% fewer tokens.

Performance by dataset and model

Performance by Dataset

Uniform employee records (TOON optimal format)

Format	Accuracy	Tokens	Correct/Total
csv	67.0%	2,337	134/200
toon	66.5%	2,483	133/200
yaml	65.5%	4,969	131/200
json	63.5%	6,347	127/200
xml	66.5%	7,314	133/200

E-commerce orders with nested structures

Format	Accuracy	Tokens	Correct/Total
toon	78.8%	5,967	126/160
csv	71.9%	6,735	115/160
yaml	71.9%	7,328	115/160
json	73.1%	9,694	117/160
xml	73.8%	10,992	118/160

Time-series analytics data

Format	Accuracy	Tokens	Correct/Total
csv	67.6%	1,393	92/136
toon	67.6%	1,515	92/136
yaml	64.7%	2,938	88/136
json	68.4%	3,665	93/136
xml	66.2%	4,376	90/136

Top 100 GitHub repositories

Format	Accuracy	Tokens	Correct/Total
csv	64.2%	8,513	77/120
toon	62.5%	8,745	75/120
yaml	57.5%	13,129	69/120
json	55.0%	15,145	66/120
xml	53.3%	17,095	64/120

Performance by Model

gpt-5-nano

Format	Accuracy	Correct/Total
toon	96.1%	148/154
csv	90.3%	139/154
yaml	89.0%	137/154
json	87.7%	135/154
xml	83.8%	129/154

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001

Format	Accuracy	Correct/Total
yaml	49.4%	76/154
toon	48.1%	74/154
csv	48.1%	74/154
json	47.4%	73/154
xml	46.8%	72/154

gemini-2.5-flash

Format	Accuracy	Correct/Total
csv	87.7%	135/154
xml	85.1%	131/154
toon	83.8%	129/154
json	78.6%	121/154
yaml	76.6%	118/154

grok-4-fast-non-reasoning

Format	Accuracy	Correct/Total
toon	48.7%	75/154
json	48.1%	74/154
xml	47.4%	73/154
yaml	46.8%	72/154
csv	45.5%	70/154

How the benchmark works

What's Being Measured

This benchmark tests LLM comprehension and data retrieval accuracy across different input formats. Each LLM receives formatted data and must answer questions about it (this does not test model's ability to generate TOON output).

Datasets Tested

Four datasets designed to test different structural patterns:

1. Tabular (100 employee records): Uniform objects with identical fields – optimal for TOON's tabular format.
2. Nested (50 e-commerce orders): Complex structures with nested customer objects and item arrays.
3. Analytics (60 days of metrics): Time-series data with dates and numeric values.
4. GitHub (100 repositories): Real-world data from top GitHub repos by stars.

Question Types

154 questions are generated dynamically across three categories:

• Field retrieval (40%): Direct value lookups or values that can be read straight off a record (including booleans and simple counts such as array lengths)

  • Example: "What is Alice's salary?" → 75000
  • Example: "How many items are in order ORD-0042?" → 3
  • Example: "What is the customer name for order ORD-0042?" → John Doe

• Aggregation (32%): Dataset-level totals and averages plus single-condition filters (counts, sums, min/max comparisons)

  • Example: "How many employees work in Engineering?" → 17
  • Example: "What is the total revenue across all orders?" → 45123.50
  • Example: "How many employees have salary > 80000?" → 23

• Filtering (28%): Multi-condition queries requiring compound logic (AND constraints across fields)

  • Example: "How many employees in Sales have salary > 80000?" → 5
  • Example: "How many active employees have more than 10 years of experience?" → 8

Evaluation Process

1. Format conversion: Each dataset is converted to all 5 formats (TOON, CSV, XML, JSON, YAML).
2. Query LLM: Each model receives formatted data + question in a prompt and extracts the answer.
3. Validate with LLM-as-judge: gpt-5-nano validates if the answer is semantically correct (e.g., 50000 = $50,000, Engineering = engineering, 2025-01-01 = January 1, 2025).

Models & Configuration

• Models tested: gpt-5-nano, claude-haiku-4-5-20251001, gemini-2.5-flash, grok-4-fast-non-reasoning
• Token counting: Using gpt-tokenizer with o200k_base encoding (GPT-5 tokenizer)
• Temperature: Not set (models use their defaults)
• Total evaluations: 154 questions × 5 formats × 4 models = 3,080 LLM calls