JSON and YAML intrinsically define that. "10" is a string. 10 is a number. [10] is a single number in an array. {"number":10} is an object. You're conflating

JSON and YAML intrinsically define that. "10" is a string. 10 is a number. [10] is a single number in an array. {"number":10} is an object. You're conflating advice for databases with advice for data serialization formats: XML captures less information about the data it contains intrinsically. _ Also please don't use YAML as "JSON with comments", you're just asking to run into some obscure bug/corner case If you're willing to do weird things there's always JSON5