Hi everyone, I've got a Kotlin project (not Andro...

# getting-started

[Advitiay Anand]

Hi everyone,

I've got a Kotlin project (not Android) that involves many variables with user-specific values (e.g. username, password, time-table)

I would like this data to be moved out of the code, and into a modifiable file. The goal is to make it easy for non-coders to modify values and use the program.

What are my best bets here? (JSON / YAML / etc). And what library should I be using?

Here's a link to the project:
https://github.com/adizcode/ProxyMate

[Tim Oltjenbruns]

In the past I’ve gone with Gson and/or Moshi, Kotlin serialization is an option as well, I have no experience with it though.

As for the decision between json/yaml, I usually make that decision based on whether there will be repeated values in the data or not. If there is a lot of repeated data, with yaml the user can use anchors and aliases to make that easier to maintain. Otherwise go with json.

[Paul Griffith]

TOML is closer to plain text than JSON (less repeated quotes and braces and such) and has less footguns than YAML

[Tim Oltjenbruns]

alternatively, if the config is simple… properties file?

[Advitiay Anand]

Thank you for the responses.
@Tim Oltjenbruns I don't actually know about properties files. Are they like .env files?

[Paul Griffith]

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/essential/environment/properties.html

[Paul Griffith]

JVM-only, though it’d be easy enough to write a parser on another platform

[Advitiay Anand]

This is great. I'll certainly read about using properties. Thanks :))

[Oliver.O]

This excellent pure Kotlin config library together with YAML seems like a good option in my view:
https://github.com/sksamuel/hoplite