What is meta file?

Meta file is simple representation of concatenated Hocon configuration that allows add some extra meta information for configuration key.

How is structured?

File is itself yaml grouped to three sections:

hocones-version: '0.1'
roots:
  root_path:
    (path - root_path):
    - name:
    - meta-information:
orphans:
  - name:
  - meta-information:

• hocones-version is for migration
• roots contains objects and values grouped with long paths
• orphans contains objects and values with super (single segment) or none paths

Is structured like that to help finding looked values.

What are possible meta information to set?

Every value contains:

• name - from config file
• description - you can give some comment about this value

Then values are treated differently depending of type:

• String literals:
  • pattern - string value
  • min-length - number value
  • max-length - number value
• Numbers:
  • max-value - number value
  • min-value - number value
• Lists:
  • can-be-empty - boolean value
  • element-type - description of list elements
• Object:
  • element-type - description of object children

Why we need it?

This file is used during generation of documentation