JDAML (Jevko Data And Markup Language, pronounced /dʒeɪˈdæməl/) is an XML-like format built on Jevko designed to work equally well for data interchange, configuration, and text markup.

JDAML is still experimental. The idea is that it should be a flexible complement or an alternative to formats and syntaxes such as HTML, XML, JSX, JSON, YAML, TOML, etc.

It can serve as a unified, lean, and human-friendly representation of these formats, can be mixed with them, or can be used alone.

Below are a few examples of mapping JDAML to and from formats in various domains.

JDAML uses the same basic primitives as XML or HTML:

1. Text nodes.
2. Elements.
3. Attributes.

Like in XML/HTML, attributes in JDAML are semantically unique and unordered.

However, they are much more flexible than in XML/HTML:

• they are proper nodes, like elements,
• can be placed anywhere within the parent,
• can have children of their own.

This gives JDAML the ability to represent unordered sets of name-value pairs distinctly from ordered collections of values. So for example we can have a clear mapping between JDAML and JSON objects and arrays.

This design makes the format truly extensible. Changing a value of an attribute from simple text to a complex structure is not only possible (unlike in HTML/XML), but natural and easy.

Also, changing an attribute into an element and vice versa is extremely easy (unlike in HTML/XML).

JDAML always preserves whitespace in the syntax tree without any change.

Currently JDAML is experimental and only has a Proof of Concept implementation to test. Source code is available at Codeberg.

Feedback welcome!