Understanding Configuration FilesΒΆ

There is a lot of content within the CS Unplugged project. We split this content across many files and configuration files are the things that bring everything together. These files are used for configuring the content data stored in the system database, so it is important to understand how to read and write these configuration files if you are working on this project.

Here is an example configuration file used to define follow up activities in the CS Unplugged project:

binary-number-bracelets:
  number: 1
  md-file: bracelets.md
  curriculum-areas:
    - arts
    - design

hidden-binary-signals:
  number: 2
  md-file: hidden-binary-signals.md
  curriculum-areas:
    - listening

This page aims to give a brief tutorial on YAML files, so you can modify and write configuration files within this project.

YAML files are mostly made up of key/value pairs, where each key is matched with one value. This is often called a dictionary in programming languages. This configuration file contains the follow three key/value pairs:

  • The key learning-outcomes points to the file learning-outcomes.yaml

  • The key programming-challenges-structure points to the file programming-challenges-structure.yaml

  • The key topic-structure-files points to the ordered list of files binary-numbers/structure.yaml and error-detection-and-correction/structure.yaml

The majority of configuration files within this project only use dictionaries (sets of key/value pairs) and lists to store their data. Here are some other useful tips:

# You can include comments in YAML by starting with a # character

# This stores the integer 7 in the key 'number'
number: 7

# This is an ordered list of dictionaries within the key 'difficulties'
difficulties:
  - level: 1
    name: Beginner
  - level: 2
    name: Growing Experience
  - level: 3
    name: Ready to Expand

You may find that there is more than one configuration file that you need to modify/create. This is because it is difficult to read files using deep nesting (indentation), so we have split configuration data across multiple files to avoid this issue.

If you want to learn more about YAML, there are plenty of great tutorials available online.