- INI-file the right way, both for software and humans 🙈
- You can use strings enclosed in single or double quotes. Raw, Classic or Hyper strings, use whatever you like and need 😉
- Need another section or nested section? Sure no problem, no need to fuss with brackets or dots or whatever! Just add an extra hash character, ala Markdown header, and be done with it 🚀
Yet another INI markup language - YINI is a config and settings file format (similar (but not same) to INI-files) for computer software that consists of plain text with a very simple structure and notation, comprising of Key–Value pairs and Key-List pairs, grouped in sections. YINI uses conventions that are familiar to programmers mainly of the C-family of languages. More about YINI
This project and repository deals with the specification for the YINI markup language.
A short example of how a YINI document file looks like:
# MyPrefs
HomeDir = "C:\Users\John Smith\"
Buffers = 10
IsNight = OFF // Boolean false, YINI understands also OFF, YES, ON etc.
// Following is a list (array) with strings as elements.
KeyWords = [ "Orange", "Banana", "Pear", "Peach" ]
/END // All YINI files must end with this line.A YINI document file can look like this as well:
# window
title = 'Sample Window' // Strings can be enclosed in either ' or ".
id = 'window_main'
# image
src = 'gfx/bg.png'
id = 'bg1'
isCentered = true
# text
content = 'Click here!'
id = 'text1'
isCentered = true
url = 'images/'
// Following is a list with other lists as elements.
styles = [
['font-weight', 'bold'], ['size', 36], ['font', 'arial']
]
/END // End of YINI doc.More examples can be found here: Examples and there are some YINI document files here: More-samples
Compared with other markup languages:
- YINI should have simpler structure and more lightweight than YAML and TOML.
- YINI should be more human-readable than (nested) JSON and YAML.
- YINI should be less verbose (verbal) than XML.
- YINI's syntax shall be more high level than JSON.
YINI aims to be a simple and (relatively) lightweight text-based markup language format, for storing configurations, settings and preferences in software. It should be language-independent and platform-independent as far as possible.
YINI should have built-in types of the most general data types (to keep the format more simple and more lightweight). Custom types, advanced typechecking and type specialization are left to the user/client and host/language to handle/process if further specialization is desired by the user/client using a YINI file/document.
YINI format should be very simple and minimal to express the structure, notation and grouping of data to be stored on a medium for later use. But still simple and legible enough to be read by humans.
Although there does not exists any YINI readers yet, a sister project YINI-Reader-TS is planned when this spec matures more (when YINI goes into beta?).
- YINI files/documents should be platform agnostic, portable between platforms and programming languages as far as possible.
- YINI should have a simple structure and notation, be easy to group data, yet be unambiguous.
- YINI should be easily readable (to some extent) by humans.
- YINI should be non-verbose, avoid to use excessive or unnecessary words or characters. And at the same time be (relatively) light-weight, yet be (relatively) high-level.
- YINI files/documents should be easy to create, use, read, write, and support one-pass processing.
The actual YINI Specification can be found here: YINI spec.
This repo also includes a YINI grammar (in ANTLR 4 ). It aims to follow the specification as closely as possible. You find it here: Lexer and Parser.
Feedback, bug reports, suggestions, and code contributions are welcome!
Head over to Docs/Contributing.md
This project is licensed under the Apache-2.0 license - see the LICENSE file for details.
This project and repository is created and maintaned by Marko K. S.
Marko has been programming and developing software in his spare time since the mid 80s in several different programming languages, from Basic to C and Assembler. In education he read Computer Science's Engineering and a Master's degree in Software Development with a specialization in Programming Languages. He has been working professionally for many years in software development from PHP to TypeScript and fullstack web development.