4 ms·

JSON + comments + trailing commas + naked keys + multiline strings would be a great alternative. Maybe something like JSON5.

kodablah 8y ago
You'd really like HOCON[0] then. Just a bit too complicated to see wide adoption I'm afraid. 0 - https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/HOCON.md https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/HOCON.md
- ngrilly 8y ago
  Interesting, but, as you wrote, it's a bit too much complex, and there is too much syntactic variations for my taste.
- rad_gruchalski 8y ago
  HOCON is awesome
krapp 8y ago
Have you considered Lua tables? The syntax resembles JSON, but simpler, and keys don't need to be quoted. Trailing commas are allowed, and so are multiline strings.
- ngrilly 8y ago
  I didn't have. But how do you parse it without Lua? Is a parser library available for mainstream languages?
  - krapp 8y ago
    > But how do you parse it without Lua? You wouldn't, but the language is lightweight enough (according to Wikipedia, the interpreter is ~180kb compiled) that including it as a dependency probably won't matter. It's less overhead than an interpreter for JSON or YAML at least. >Is a parser library available for mainstream languages? It's used commonly in game development so yes for C and C++, and the site[0] mentions "Java, C#, Smalltalk, Fortran, Ada, Erlang, and even in other scripting languages, such as Perl and Ruby" as well. [0]https://www.lua.org/about.html https://www.lua.org/about.html
    - ngrilly 8y ago
      I know Lua and I use it sometimes (for example in Redis). But I don't want to include a full Lua interpreter in my program just to parse a configuration file. It's overkill in my opinion :-)
      - krapp 8y ago
        Fair enough, but it still seems like the language you're looking for, feature-wise.
user5994461 8y ago
See https://hjson.org/ https://hjson.org/ too. Same as json5 except it has libraries in all languages, examples and unit tests.

kodablah 8y ago

You'd really like HOCON[0] then. Just a bit too complicated to see wide adoption I'm afraid. 0 - https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/HOCON.md https://github.com/lightbend/config/blob/master/HOCON.md

ngrilly 8y ago
Interesting, but, as you wrote, it's a bit too much complex, and there is too much syntactic variations for my taste.
rad_gruchalski 8y ago
HOCON is awesome

krapp 8y ago

Have you considered Lua tables? The syntax resembles JSON, but simpler, and keys don't need to be quoted. Trailing commas are allowed, and so are multiline strings.

ngrilly 8y ago
I didn't have. But how do you parse it without Lua? Is a parser library available for mainstream languages?
- krapp 8y ago
  > But how do you parse it without Lua? You wouldn't, but the language is lightweight enough (according to Wikipedia, the interpreter is ~180kb compiled) that including it as a dependency probably won't matter. It's less overhead than an interpreter for JSON or YAML at least. >Is a parser library available for mainstream languages? It's used commonly in game development so yes for C and C++, and the site[0] mentions "Java, C#, Smalltalk, Fortran, Ada, Erlang, and even in other scripting languages, such as Perl and Ruby" as well. [0]https://www.lua.org/about.html https://www.lua.org/about.html
  - ngrilly 8y ago
    I know Lua and I use it sometimes (for example in Redis). But I don't want to include a full Lua interpreter in my program just to parse a configuration file. It's overkill in my opinion :-)
    - krapp 8y ago
      Fair enough, but it still seems like the language you're looking for, feature-wise.

user5994461 8y ago

See https://hjson.org/ https://hjson.org/ too. Same as json5 except it has libraries in all languages, examples and unit tests.