Alternatives to XML?

[Frank Millman]

"Frank Millman"  wrote in message news:npkcnf$kq7$1 at blaine.gmane.org...

> 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.

> Can anyone offer an alternative which is closer to my original intention?

Many thanks for the replies. I will respond to them all in one place.

@alister
"are these files expected to be read/written by a human being or are they
for your application to save & restore its settings?"

Good question.

My project is a business/accounting system. It provides a number of tables 
and columns pre-defined, but it also allows users to create their own. I 
allow them to define business rules to be invoked at various points. 
Therefore it must be in a format which is readable/writable by humans, but 
executable at runtime by my program.

.ini is an interesting idea - I will look into it

@rob
"You've been staring at that XML too long; you've become familiar with
it.  It's just as unreadable as the JSON or the YAML unless you already
know what it says."

Good comment! I am sure you are right. Whichever format I settle on, I will 
have to provide some sort of cheat-sheet explaining to non-technical users 
what the format is.

Having said that, I do find the XML more readable in the sense that the 
attributes are closely linked with their elements. I think it is easier to 
explain what <compare src="_param.auto_party_id" op="is_not" tgt="$None"> is 
doing than the equivalent in JSON or YAML.

@Marko
I have never heard of S-expressions before, but they look interesting. I 
will investigate further.

@Peter/Chris
I don't understand - please explain.

If I store the business rule in Python code, how do I prevent untrusted 
users putting malicious code in there? I presume I would have to execute the 
code by calling eval(), which we all know is dangerous. Is there another way 
of executing it that I am unaware of?

Frank