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PODiff/merge-friendy human-readable configuration file format
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  1. PODiff/merge-friendy human-readable configuration file format
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    copied!<p>My users want to store my app's settings in a version control system.</p> <p>(The app targets developers and designers, and allows per-folder settings. Users often ask me to store those settings inside the folder itself, so that they can commit them to VCS.)</p> <p>The settings are modified from the app's UI and are thus <strong>saved programmatically</strong>, but I want the resulting file to be human-readable. My first choice would be a pretty-printed JSON, except that it's a funny thing to merge (think those forbidden trailing commas).</p> <p>That got me thinking: <strong>what is the most diff/merge-friendy human-readable text format I can possibly use?</strong></p> <p>I know many version control systems support external merge tools, but I don't want to burden the users with additional setup. <strong>My goal is to minimize accidental conflicts</strong> while keeping a reasonable, readable format and <strong>without any additional effort from the user</strong>.</p> <p>The data I store is basically a list of rules, and each rule has a number of user-configurable properties. Like this:</p> <pre><code>rules: - type: compile source: *.less destination: *.css compiler: LESS 1.x - type: compile source: *.coffee destination: *.js compiler: CoffeeScript 1.3 sourceMaps: true </code></pre> <p>A line-based YAML looks like a reasonably good choice. An OpenSSH-style config format may work even better.</p> <p>So two questions:</p> <ul> <li><p>Has someone tried to solve this problem before and maybe did a write up of their experience?</p></li> <li><p>Anything off the top of your head that I should consider when formatting the output file?</p> <p>E.g. will it help to add 2-3 empty lines between the rules to defeat the diff context and minimize conflicts in case two users both add a new rule at the end (a pretty typical case)?</p></li> </ul>
 

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