TOML data types| tutorials with examples

Data types in toml allow you to define the type of a key and value pairs.

Toml data types

In Toml documents, value data must support the following types

a String
an Integer
a Float
a boolean
date and time types(Offset Local date, times)
an array
an inline-table

toml value can not support the following types

Binary data
Infinity and NAN
undefined
functions

TOML Strings

value strings accept basic strings, multiple-line strings, literals, and multiple-line literals. values of strings can be represented in double quotes as follows,

name=“Franc”

Multiple lines of strings are accepted as values, Multiline strings are enclosed in three quotations as follows statement=""" I am statement with multi-line strings """"

Literal values are enclosed in single quotes as follows

documentpath='opt\docs\repo'

multi-line literal values are enclosed by three single quotes as follows

lines=’’' this is multiple lines literals example’''

TOML Integer types

values in documents accept positive and negative values

example

key1=+45 \# positive number value
key2=-20 \# negative number value

Big integers are expressed with an underscore as follows

key3=300_000

values can also accept hexadecimal, octal, and binary numbers

key5=0xDFA1 \# prefix 0X for hex decimal numbers
key6=0o746 \# prefix 0o for octal numbers
key6=0b1001 \# prefix 0b for binary numbers

TOML Float types

float numbers contain integers and decimal numbers separated by a dot(.)

example

keyfloat1=+1.5
keyfloat1=-1.5

TOML Boolean types

Boolean is true and false in lower cases accepted as values.

key_true=true
key_false=false

TOML Date types

The following are supported date formats, Date must be as per RFC 3339

OffsetDate Time Local Date Time Local Date Local Time

Example

offsetdatetime-key=2020-02-20T06:10:20Z # offset Date time
offsetdatetime-key1=2020-02-20 06:10:20Z # offset Date time - T is replaced with spaces also
localdatetime-key=2020-02-20 06:10:20 # local Date time
date-key=2020-02-20 #  Date type
time-key=06:10:20 #  Time type

TOML Array type

Like any programming language, This also provides arrays, arrays are used to group the elements referred to with a single variable name. Syntax

Array-Key=Array-Values

Array values are enclosed with square brackets
Double quotes are not required
spaces are not considered
each value in an Array-Values is separated by a comma symbol.
value contains the same types - strings, numbers, etc.. or of mixed types- (string and numbers)
values contain multiple lines with a line break or enter

TOML Array of strings/numbers Example

Array values contain the same type of data i.e. strings.

numbers=[1,2,3,4] # array of numbers
weekends=["SATURDAY","SUNDAY"] # array of strings
floatarray=[1.0,3.5] # array of floats
mixed-array-1=[1,"one"] # array of mixed type
array-multiple-lines=[
  7,9,0
]

nested array in toml examples

a nested array is an array of arrays, each element in an array contains an array of values.

nested-array-key=[[2,3],[5,6]] # nested array of numbers
nested-array-key1=[
  [12,3],
  ["URL1","URL2"]
  ] # nested array of mixed types

Table Data type

One of the important types is the type that is a representation of HashTable or properties objects in another programming language. The table stores the collection of keys and values under a one name.

Syntax:

[table-name]
key="value"
      #line break

Table type rules

The first line of the table is enclosed in a square bracket
The last line must be EOF or specify the next table.
data in the table is unordered
All the data type rules are applied to table data
spaces are ignored
Tables without data is valid
Duplicate tables are not allowed

Example:

[my-table]
id=1
name="Frank"

Inline Table type

This is another way of expressing data in table format examples

employee={id=2,name="Tom"}

Rules

Inline tables data is enclosed in curly braces
All the data placed in a single line
Newline inside braces are invalid

TOML Datatypes