Editing YAML (section)

===Basic components===

Conventional block format uses a hyphen+space to begin a new item in list.
<syntaxhighlight lang="yaml">
--- # Favorite movies
- Casablanca
- North by Northwest
- The Man Who Wasn't There
</syntaxhighlight>

Optional inline format is delimited by comma+space and enclosed in brackets (similar to [[JavaScript Object Notation|JSON]]).<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.jigocloud.com/en/blog/yaml-is-json |title=Cloud Based Management apps |website=JigoCloud.com |access-date=2016-09-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160917202144/http://www.jigocloud.com/en/blog/yaml-is-json |archive-date=2016-09-17 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<syntaxhighlight lang="yaml">
--- # Shopping list
[milk, pumpkin pie, eggs, juice]
</syntaxhighlight>

Keys are separated from values by a colon+space. Indented blocks, common in YAML data files, use indentation and new lines to separate the key/value pairs. Inline blocks, common in YAML data streams, use comma+space to separate the key/value pairs between braces.
<syntaxhighlight lang="yaml">
--- # Indented Block
  name: John Smith
  age: 33
--- # Inline Block
{name: John Smith, age: 33}
</syntaxhighlight>

Strings do not require quotation marks. There are two ways to write multi-line strings, one preserving newlines (using the <code>|</code> character) and one that folds the newlines (using the {{code|>}} character), both followed by a newline character.

<syntaxhighlight lang="yaml">
data: |
   There once was a tall man from Ealing
   Who got on a bus to Darjeeling
       It said on the door
       "Please don't sit on the floor"
   So he carefully sat on the ceiling
</syntaxhighlight>

By default, the leading indentation (of the first line) and trailing whitespace are stripped, though other behavior can be explicitly specified.

<syntaxhighlight lang="yaml">
data: >
   Wrapped text
   will be folded
   into a single
   paragraph

   Blank lines denote
   paragraph breaks
</syntaxhighlight>
Folded text converts newlines to spaces and removes leading whitespace.

<syntaxhighlight lang="yaml">
--- # The Smiths
- {name: John Smith, age: 33}
- name: Mary Smith
  age: 27
- [name, age]: [Rae Smith, 4]   # sequences as keys are supported
--- # People, by gender
men: [John Smith, Bill Jones]
women:
  - Mary Smith
  - Susan Williams
</syntaxhighlight>

Objects and lists are important components in yaml and can be mixed. The first example is a list of key-value objects, all people from the Smith family. The second lists them by gender; it is a key-value object containing two lists.