data-modelling.ftd

-- my-ds.page: Data Modelling With `ftd`

`ftd` is an alternative to XML/JSON for storing data.

-- ds.h1: Optimized For Human Readability

`ftd` is designed for humans to write data. It tries to be a minimal
as possible, intuitive and readable, no quote character for strings, avoid
indentation etc.

-- ds.code: ftd file containing data
lang: ftd

\-- record person:
caption name:
string location:
optional body bio:

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

Amit is the founder and CEO of FifthTry.

-- ds.markdown:

Consider this example. We have described our data, `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](/p1-grammar/) to understand the low
level grammer better.

-- ds.h1: Rich Data Modelling

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

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

-- ds.h1: Reading FTD Files

Programs can read ftd files:

-- ds.code:
lang: rs

#[derive(serde::Deserialize)]
struct Employee {
    name: String,
    location: String,
    bio: Option<String>
}

let doc = ftd::p2::Document::from("some/id", source, lib)?;
let amitu: Employee = doc.get("amitu")?;

-- ds.markdown:

Read more about it in ["reading data" guide](/reading-data/).

-- ds.h1: Better Organization Of Data

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


-- end: my-ds.page