Alternatives to XML?
alister
alister.ware at ntlworld.com
Wed Aug 24 11:21:30 EDT 2016
On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 16:58:54 +0200, Frank Millman wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I have mentioned in the past that I use XML for storing certain
> structures 'off-line', and I got a number of comments urging me to use
> JSON or YAML instead.
>
> In fact XML has been working very well for me, but I am looking into
> alternatives simply because of the issue of using '>' and '<' in
> attributes.
> I can convert them to '>' and '<', but that imposes a cost in
> terms of readability.
>
are these files expected to be read/written by a human being or are they
for your application to save & restore its settings?
if the former then you probably need to choose a specification/format
that was designed to be human readable form the start (such as the
old .ini format)
if it is primarily for your app then you need a format that efficiently &
accurately saves the data you require, readability is a secondary (but
still desirable) requirement for debugging & the rare case where a manual
change is req.
XLM is bulky with lots of redundant information & still not readily
readable without extra tools.
Json is quite terse but I find it quite readable & is well suited for
saving most data structures
pickle can save the data efficiently but is certainly not readable
--
Even a blind pig stumbles upon a few acorns.
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