YAML (YAML Ain’t Markup Language) is stands for “YAML Ain’t Markup Language” or sometimes recursively as “YAML Ain’t Markup Language”. It is often used for configuration files and data exchange between languages with different data structures.
- Human-Readable: YAML is designed to be easily readable and writable by humans. It uses indentation to represent the structure of the data, making it visually clear.
- Whitespace Sensitive: The indentation is crucial in YAML to define the structure. Blocks of text at the same indentation level are considered to be part of the same structure.
- Data Types: YAML supports various data types, including scalars (strings, numbers), sequences (arrays/lists), and mappings (key-value pairs). It also supports null values and boolean types.
- Comments: Comments in YAML start with the
#character and are used for adding explanations or annotations. - Support for Complex Data Structures: YAML allows nesting of structures, making it suitable for representing complex data hierarchies.
- Portable: YAML is language-agnostic and can be used with a variety of programming languages. This makes it a popular choice for configuration files in software development.
Here’s a simple example of a YAML document:
yaml
name: John Doe
age: 30
is_student: false
grades:
- subject: Math
score: 95
- subject: English
score: 85
In this example, the YAML document represents information about a person, including their name, age, student status, and grades in different subjects.