. syck .

                     [ version 0.70 ]

INSTALLATION

./bootstrap ./configure make make check sudo make install

If the unit tests don't pass, notify me immediately. This distribution is tested on FreeBSD and Linux. I don't release it unless the tests pass on those machines. If tests aren't passing, then that's a problem.

ABOUT

Syck is the Scripters' YAML Cobble-Yourself-a-Parser Kit. I don't much care if the acronym works, as long as the library does!

The whole point of Syck is to make parsing and emitting YAML very simple for scripting languages through C bindings. It doesn't strive to be a pull parser or very extendible. It just is concerned with loading a YAML document into a C structure which can be easily translated into a scripting language's internal native data type.

RUBY INSTALLATION

You don't need to `make install', but please configure and make libsyck as outlined above.

cd ext/ruby ruby install.rb config ruby install.rb setup sudo ruby install.rb install

Syck works best with Ruby. Ruby's symbol table is leveraged, as well as Ruby's VALUE system. (You can read more about that below.)

Syck is now included with Ruby (beginning with Ruby 1.8.0.) Please voice your support for Syck/YAML in Ruby distributions on the various platforms.

PYTHON INSTALLATION

You'll need to `make install' as described above.

cd ext/python/ python setup.py build sudo python setup.py install

PHP INSTALLATION

You'll need to `make install' as described above.

ln -s lib include # or cp -r lib include cd ext/php/ phpize ./configure --with-syck=../.. make sudo make install

HOW SYCK IS SO GREAT

For example, in Ruby everything evaluates to a VALUE. I merely supply a handler to Syck that will take a SyckNode and transform it into a Ruby VALUE.

A simple Ruby YAML::load could be built like so:

static VALUE YAML_load( VALUE str ) { SyckParser* parser; parser = syck_new_parser(); syck_parser_handler( parser, YAML_handler ); return syck_parse( parser, str ); }

static VALUE YAML_handler( SyckNode* node ) { switch( node->kind ) { case SYCK_MAP: VALUE key; VALUE h = rb_hash_new(); for ( key = node->content[0]; key != null; key++ ) { rb_hash_set( h, key, key++ ); } return h; break; } }

For most C developers, it should be a no-brainer to bring basic YAML serialization to PHP, Tcl, Cocoa, etc.

Instructions for using Syck's API are available in the README.EXT in this very same directory.