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Show HN: I made Confetti: a configuration language file format

(confetti.hgs3.me)
67 points hgs3 | 2 comments | 31 Mar 25 12:34 UTC | HN request time: 0.514s | source

Hello everyone, I created Confetti: a simple, typeless, and localization-friendly configuration language designed for human-editable configuration files.

In my opinion, JSON works well for data interchange, but it's overused for configuration, it's not localization-friendly, and it's too syntactically noisy. INI is simple but lacks hierarchical structures and doesn't have a formal specification. Confetti is intended to bridge the gap.

I aim to keep Confetti simple and minimalistic, while encouraging others to extend it. Think of it like Markdown for configuration files: there's a core specification, but your welcome to create your own variations that suit your needs.

1. Aachen ◴[02 Apr 25 13:09 UTC] No.43556263[source]▶
I like it! The spec could be more accessibly written, but it's somewhat understandable in casual reading. Perhaps it would benefit from a diagram like json's famous one

One thing I didn't understand is this example on the homepage:

> password "${ENV:ANONPASS}"

The spec doesn't seem to mention any ${}. Is this for the program to manage rather than the parser of the config going out to fetch an env var? If so, I find this a bit out of scope to show; at least, it confused me about whether that's built-in/supported syntax or if it's just a literal with syntax intended for a different program

Depending on how set in stone this is, another complaint I might have is that you still have the trailing comma issue from JSON, except it's not a comma but a backslash (reverse solidus, as the spec calls it—my mobile keyboard didn't even know that word). Maybe starting a list of arguments with [ could allow one to use any number of lines for the values, until a ] is encountered?

replies(1): >>43558388 #
2. hgs3 ◴[02 Apr 25 16:22 UTC] No.43558388[source]▶
Yes, the "${}" would be for the program to evaluate; referencing environment variables that way isn't uncommon in Unix configuration files.

"Reverse Solidus" is the Unicode name for the character [1], so if you don't like the name, blame Unicode :)

I hadn't thought of using '[' and ']' for multi-line directives, that's an interesting suggestion. It vaguely resembles arrays as they appear in various other languages. It fits with Confetti's design of, ultimately, being user interpreted.

[1] https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+005C