jaml

Jaml is a lightweight, human-readable language designed for describing data structures and simple templates used in web applications and configuration files. It aims to provide a readable alternative to JSON while offering more structure than plain text, making it suitable for configuration, data interchange, and templating tasks in modern development workflows.

Syntax and data model: Jaml uses indentation to denote nesting, with values including strings, numbers, booleans, and null. It supports sequences and mappings, and comments begin with the hash character. Strings can be quoted or unquoted, and multi-line strings can be expressed in a YAML-like fashion. Jaml also provides anchors and aliases to reference substructures and a small set of inline expressions to compute values during parsing.

Features: The language emphasizes simplicity and streaming-friendly parsing, enabling large files to be processed with minimal memory overhead. It includes optional schema-like validation, making it easier to enforce structure and types. Language bindings exist for several host environments, allowing Jaml data to be consumed directly as native data structures in languages such as JavaScript, Python, and Ruby.

Uses: Typical applications include configuration files for servers and applications, lightweight data interchange where JSON would be verbose, and templated content generation in web apps. Jaml files are commonly parsed at load time and converted into native data structures for immediate use by applications.

History and status: Jaml emerged in open-source communities during the early 2010s as an alternative approach to YAML and JSON for specific projects. It has multiple implementations across languages, with ongoing development and community discussions about syntax design, feature scope, and compatibility with existing data formats.