YAML 1.2 Draft 2008-05-11

Is released, go to http://yaml.org and grab a fresh copy!
This is accompanied by YamlReference-0.9.2 which has, as usual, been
uploaded to http://dev.yaml.org/ypaste - so have fun playing with it.

YAML 1.1 will be used to describe the more than one-year-old spec.

YAML 1.2 will be used to describe the new spec, which includes the
JSON compatibility stuff.

YAML 1.2 is _almost_ backward compatible with YAML 1.1:
- It allows omitting the space after the colon for quoted keys
({"a":"b"}, which is backward compatible
- It *disallows* non-ASCII line feeds, which is not; however this is
not a problem in practice.

The new draft includes a new section that describes three recommended schemas:
- The "failsafe" schema; it is guaranteed to work but doesn't allow
you to do much.
- The "JSON" schema; it allows for JSON types and _only_ JSON types;
- The "Core" schema; it allows for JSON types, but with a more
relaxed, human-readable notation (e.g., integers may be specified in
hexadecimal, etc.)

We have used this opportunity to simplify the formats (e.g., integers
no longer allow '_'  to separate digits, etc.)

We have an *open issue* with regard to null values (in the "Core" schema).
- Should we still allow the '~' value to stand for a null?
(Currently the spec says yes, but we want to know if people are using
it in practice).

Note that an empty value stands for the empty string (in the "Core"
schema). So, currently:

    ---
    empty string:
    a null value: null
    null shorthand: ~
    ...


We have a one-time chance to change this, if we want to.

Comments, opinions, language fixes, bug fixes, complaints, etc. are all welcome!

Share & Enjoy,

    Oren Ben-Kiki

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