yml vs yaml

[EmilMagenta]

It seems the community is split between using the .yml and the .yaml extension.

Searching for publiccode.yml yields 740 results while searching for publiccode.yaml yields 346 results.

The official YAML FAQ states:

Is there an official extension for YAML files?

Please use ".yaml" when possible.

This has been the recommendation for yaml files since September of 2006.

The main argument for using .yml over .yaml seems to be the 8.3 rule from DOS as reinforced by Microsoft, however the publiccode.yml file does not adhere to this rule as it uses more than 8 characters before the dot.

[jgroenen]

"however the publiccode.yml file does not adhere to this rule"

[EmilMagenta]

Fixed

[tomootes]

So what will be the conclusion of this discussion? 😇

[jgroenen]

I'd say that the thing is called publiccode.yml, so that would be my answer :)

[bfabio]

Thanks for raising the issue @EmilMagenta, it’s kind of funny that no one pointed it out before 😄

I actually agree we should support both .yml and .yaml.

Technically, only .yml is correct for publiccode files and matches the project name as @jgroenen said, but as you said people are already using .yaml in some repos and it's actually a pretty reasonable assumption for users to think .yaml would work. It's not a big effort for the crawler to check both extensions.

We could prioritize .yml for consistency and backward compatibility (for example, if they both exist in the same repo), but still handle .yaml as a valid option.