Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python? • Hacker News Board

toml is a prominent example of the least-worst option gaining traction. For configuration files that need to be human editable, provide comments, but are machine readable and have broad support, TOML is the choice that the plurality has settled on. In python, it’s in core tools like pip; it’s not going away because we don’t like how you nest collections awkwardly or whatever.

at least it’s Norway YAML!

Re: Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python?

#4

Post by tetha » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 3:58 PM UTC

jakubmazanec wrote: post #2

[flagged]

That criticism feels weak to me outside of the scope of "StrictYaml vs TOML". Within that context, I might agree, having just heard of StrictYaml today. Having dealt with the full blast of complexity YAML and especially XML and XML Schema has in store... TOML is probably one of the top 2-3 config languages I'd use.

Re: Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python?

#5

Post by duped » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 4:01 PM UTC

jakubmazanec wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I find the friction with deep hierarchical data to be a benefit of TOML as a configuration file. You shouldn't have deep hierarchies in your configs.

Re: Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python?

#6

Post by fbdab103 » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 4:06 PM UTC

tetha wrote: post #4

jakubmazanec wrote: post #2

[flagged]

That criticism feels weak to me outside of the scope of "StrictYaml vs TOML". Within that context, I might agree, having just heard of StrictYaml today. Having dealt with the full blast of complexity YAML and especially XML and XML Schema has in store... TOML is probably one of the top 2-3 config languages I'd use.

More-so, what tooling relies upon StrictYAML? I can immediately point to the TOML spec and every language is going to have a library which reads it. Some off-brand YAML flavor is not ideal. We cannot even standardize on JSON5. As superior-but-mutated language has nothing but uphill battles towards adoption.

Re: Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python?

#7

Post by berkle4455 » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 4:25 PM UTC

fbdab103 wrote: post #6

tetha wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That criticism feels weak to me outside of the scope of "StrictYaml vs TOML". Within that context, I might agree, having just heard of StrictYaml today. Having dealt with the full blast of complexity YAML and especially XML and XML Schema has in store... TOML is probably one of the top 2-3 config languages I'd use.

More-so, what tooling relies upon StrictYAML? I can immediately point to the TOML spec and every language is going to have a library which reads it. Some off-brand YAML flavor is not ideal. We cannot even standardize on JSON5. As superior-but-mutated language has nothing but uphill battles towards adoption.

> every language is going to have a library

Thankfully with python we have 6

Re: Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python?

#8

Post by polski-g » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

jakubmazanec wrote: post #2

[flagged]

The fact that the article complains about the static typing in TOML makes me disregard the entire piece. That's the best part of TOML. I've encountered countless bugs in Ansible because it does know if no is "no" or false.

Re: Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python?

#9

Post by RockRobotRock » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 4:49 PM UTC

jakubmazanec wrote: post #2

[flagged]

I don't like TOML either, but it's lame to derail a topic like this.

Re: Toml-bench – Which toml package to use in Python?

#10

Post by jasonpeacock » Sat, Sep 02, 2023, 5:02 PM UTC

I was all ready with a rant about the premature optimization of worrying about the parsing speed of a configuration library with there's so many other important factors and the majority of use cases don't care about speed...

But this is a great post that covers the relative behaviors of the different parsing libraries and helps you evaluate the best _functional_ choice for your needs. Bravo!