Various types of characters are used for various functionalities. This chapter talks in detail about syntax used in YAML and focuses on character manipulation.
Indicator characters include a special semantics used to describe the content of YAML document. The following table shows this in detail.
Sr.No. | Character & Functionality |
---|---|
1 | _ It denotes a block sequence entry |
2 | ? It denotes a mapping key |
3 | : It denotes a mapping value |
4 | , It denotes flow collection entry |
5 | [ It starts a flow sequence |
6 | ] It ends a flow sequence |
7 | { It starts a flow mapping |
8 | } It ends a flow mapping |
9 | # It denotes the comments |
10 | & It denotes node’s anchor property |
11 | * It denotes alias node |
12 | ! It denotes node’s tag |
13 | | It denotes a literal block scalar |
14 | > It denotes a folded block scalar |
15 | ` Single quote surrounds a quoted flow scalar |
16 | " Double quote surrounds double quoted flow scalar |
17 | % It denotes the directive used |
The following example shows the characters used in syntax −
%YAML 1.1 --- !!map { ? !!str "sequence" : !!seq [ !!str "one", !!str "two" ], ? !!str "mapping" : !!map { ? !!str "sky" : !!str "blue", ? !!str "sea" : !!str "green", } } # This represents # only comments. --- !!map1 { ? !!str "anchored" : !local &A1 "value", ? !!str "alias" : *A1, } !!str "text"