/**
 * A list of same-shaped records, with the field names sent once.
 *
 * Every tool here that answers with a list of findings -- functions with their
 * complexity, exports with their signatures, symbols with their locations --
 * sent the field names again on every element. Measured on a 13-function
 * source file, smart_complexity's per-function blocks cost 1639 tokens, and
 * about half of that was 24 key names repeated 13 times: "distinctOperators",
 * "logicalLinesOfCode" and "maintainabilityIndex" once per function, to label
 * numbers whose meaning had already been established by the first element.
 *
 * The names are structural, not content, so they belong in the header. This is
 * the same information in the shape a table has always had, and it is
 * reversible: decodeTable() rebuilds the records exactly, which is how the one
 * in-process consumer (smart_refactor, which reads smart_complexity's output)
 * keeps working on objects.
 */
/** A leaf value: what survives JSON without further structure. */
export type Cell = string | number | boolean | null | unknown[];
export interface Table {
    /**
     * Field paths, in first-seen order. A nested field is dotted --
     * `complexity.halstead.volume` -- so the header stays flat and one row is
     * one record.
     */
    columns: string[];
    /** One array per record, positionally matching {@link columns}. */
    rows: Cell[][];
}
/**
 * Turns a list of records into a header plus rows.
 *
 * A field absent from one record is `null` in that row, and decodes back to
 * absent. A record contributing no fields at all still produces a row, so the
 * count of rows is the count of records.
 */
export declare function encodeTable(records: Record<string, unknown>[]): Table;
/**
 * Rebuilds the records a {@link Table} was encoded from.
 *
 * A `null` cell is treated as the field having been absent, which is the
 * inverse of what encodeTable() writes for a missing field. A record that
 * genuinely held `null` is therefore returned without that field; none of the
 * metric shapes here use null as a value, and the alternative -- a sentinel --
 * would cost a token on every cell to preserve a case that does not arise.
 */
export declare function decodeTable<T>(table: Table): T[];
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