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This is the right answer in my view. If you need something structured use XML, otherwise INI.

I'm more likely to Yacc my own config format than use YAML or JSON personally.

JSON is great as an output format for data though.

INI is my favorite. I dont understand why it isn't the automatic default for everything.

As far as I know there is no standard for INI. There is a TOML that looks close enough I guess?

TOML looks good. I'd rather it be call the ini standard but.

iirc, it's hard to do any nested structure in INI - you'd have to do a convention like putting prefixes and dots in the name of the entry to denote hierarchy.

Exactly what I think about the matter. Sometimes I use proprietary binary formats together with UDP where performance is critical (game servers for example).

I like NestedText, it's less verbose than anything else for nested data.