Tom's Obvious, Minimal Language. By Tom Preston-Werner, Pradyun Gedam, et al. TOML aims to be a minimal configuration file format that's easy to read due to obvious semantics. TOML is designed to map unambiguously to a hash table. TOML should be easy to parse into data structures in a wide variety of languages. TOML shares traits with other file formats used for application configuration and data serialization, such as YAML and JSON. TOML and JSON both are simple and use ubiquitous data types, making them easy to code for or parse with machines. TOML and YAML both emphasize human readability features, like comments that make it easier to understand the purpose of a given line. TOML differs in combining these, allowing comments (unlike JSON) but preserving simplicity (unlike YAML). Because TOML is explicitly intended as a configuration file format, parsing it is easy, but it is not intended for serializing arbitrary data structures.
Features
- Aims to be a minimal configuration file format
- Easy to read due to obvious semantics
- Made and designed to map unambiguously to a hash table
- Easy to parse into data structures in a wide variety of languages
- Uses ubiquitous data types, making it easy to code for or parse with machines
- There is no standardized format for INI