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Data Modelling With fastn

fastn language is an alternative to XML/JSON for storing data.

Optimized For Human Readability

fastn language is designed for humans to write data. It tries to be as minimal as possible, intuitive and readable, no quote character for strings, avoid indentation etc.
Sample data
-- record person:
caption name:
string location:
optional body bio:

-- person amitu: Amit Upadhyay
location: Banglore, India

Amit is the founder and CEO of FifthTry.
Lang:
ftd

Consider the above example where we have described our data as person, and notice we have type for each field. Notice also our types caption, which like "heading of the data", body, which lets people write multiline strings without worrying about quoting or indentation etc.

Read our ftd::p1 grammar guide to understand the low level grammer better.

Rich Data Modelling

It has support for typed variables, records (struct in other languages), or-type (enum in Rust, also called "algebraic data type") and lists.

fastn files can be validated to conform to strict type or not, and this can be used by editors to assist humans write correct fastn files.

Better Organization Of Data

fastn also supports referring to other fastn files, so one can describe the schema or data in one file and refer it from other files.