YAML

References

• The Official YAML Site
• YAML Wikipedia Article

Notes

YAML is a human-friendly data serialization language for all programming languages.

It is commonly used for configuration files and in applications where data is being stored and transmitted. YAML targets many of the same communication applications as Extensible Markup Language (XML) but has a minimal syntax that intentionally differs from Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML). It uses Python-style indentation to indicate nesting and does not require quotes around most string values.

Custom data types are allowed, but YAML natively encodes scalars (such as strings, integers, and floats), lists, and associative arrays (aka maps, dictionaries, and hashes).

The official recommended filename extension for YAML files has been .yaml since 2006. In 2024, the MIME type application/yaml has been finalized. YAML was first proposed by Clark Evans in 2001. YAML was said to mean Yet Another Markup Language because it was released in an era that saw a proliferation of markup languages for presentation and connectivity. YAML was repurposed as YAML Ain't Markup Language.

Conventional block format uses a hyphen+space to being a new item in list.

--- # Favorite movies
- Casablanca
- North by Northwest
- The Man Who Wasn't There