[GeneThomas]

> You're about to introduce node attributes.

Yes, but limited to #id and :type.

> tabular data that is very common as well?

Xᴇɴᴏɴ has first class arrays also so tabular data could be stored as such.

> explain what makes the graph support and how it differs from declaring ids and refs in other formats you think are worse than yours. No answer.

It is built in!

> So why would it care the formatting at all?

FOR INTEROPERABILITY! That is different implementations of xᴇɴᴏɴ agree on what a ɢᴜɪᴅ or date looks like! Fʏɪ, with a good implementation of xᴇɴᴏɴ you just point the library at your data, sometimes augmented with some attributes, and you get cleanly formatted markup.

>>One should be able to guess an ᴀᴘɪ.

> For the second, API for what?

Say you are using an ᴀᴘɪ for information about a person and their is information about their height, in xᴇɴᴏɴ one knows there shall be a scalar called “Height”, in xᴍʟ it may be an attribute or a sub element.

>> Yes. Human have to read markup.

> Format should not care too much.

We are using text formats because they are READable to humans.

> Separate digits with underscores or spaces.

That is not standard anywhere.

> [...] color highlighting

Only the application knows if a scalar is a number or a string.

There are no obvious design flaws. Take xᴍʟ, add an array type and xᴇɴᴏɴ results.

We must be talking a cross purposes re formatting. [phew...] An application has an object called Person, and a field called Height with a type of double. C♯: Person fred = new Person { Height = 1.67 }; string xenon = XenonStart.Serialize("person", fred), results in the string "<person><Height=1.67><$>". A xᴇɴᴏɴ implementation in another language, say JavaScript can take that xᴇɴᴏɴ string and decode it into an object with a field called Height with a value that can be decoded .AsNumber into 1.67; because there is a standard for encoding a ɪᴇᴇᴇ 64 bit number/.net double/JavaScript number.

Xᴇɴᴏɴ has more benefits.

[GeneThomas]

> * Native support for arrays. I mentioned a few above. `<<Faults$$>>` and `<<$$>>` -- guess what these two mean if you see this first time? You would never guess. It's an empty array and an empty element, you've just failed.

<< means it relates to starting an array, $>> means it is the end, $$ meaning something else — an empty array!

The xᴍʟ alternative is a bodge:

    public class PurchaseOrder
    {
        public Item[] ItemsOrders;
    }

    public class Item
    {
        public string ItemID;
        public decimal ItemPrice;
    }

serializes to:

    <PurchaseOrder>
        <ItemsOrders>
            <Item>
                <ItemID>aaa111</ItemID>
                <ItemPrice>34.22</ItemPrice>
            </Item>
            <Item>
                <ItemID>bbb222</ItemID>
                <ItemPrice>2.89</ItemPrice>
            </Item> 
        </ItemsOrders>
    </PurchaseOrder>

Where the array is marked up as two sub elements both called <Item>:

Xᴇɴᴏɴ has first class support for arrays:

  <PurchaseOrder>
      <<ItemsOrders>
          <ItemID=aaa111>
          <ItemPrice=34.22>
      <&>
          <ItemID=bbb222>
          <ItemPrice=2.89>
      <$>>
  <$>

The elements may be scalars so

  <PurchaseOrder>
      <<ItemsOrders>
      <$>>
  <$>

has an array with one item of the empty string. So a separate syntax for empty arrays is required!

  <PurchaseOrder>
      <<ItemsOrders$$>>
  <$>