Configuration: XML, Yaml or Annotations?

[leevigraham]

Yaml:

• Easy to read.
• Easy to write.
• Separates config from code.
• Not sure about IDE support

XML:

• Separates config from code.
• Can be validated and includes IDE auto completion hints

Annotations:

• Some bundles only support annotations.
• Harder to maintain.
• Configuration in context
• Poses an issue for auto generating code (entities)

Ping @ianbelcher @iainsaxon

[ghost]

My personal preference (at the moment) is yaml, but it does have it's shortcomings in comparison to xml. I do find xml harder to read but it 'feels' like the proper way to go.

Annotations are the thorn in the side. As you've said, many bundles only support annotations, but again I 'feel' getting away from them is the right thing. For a larger site, routing would be much harder using annotations and I'm predicting Nelmio\ApiDocBundle will be a little more difficult to keep up to date correctly using annotations.

[leevigraham]

So lets go with yml for everything except controller annotations for bundles:

What?	Filename	Notes
Config	config.yml
Services	services.yml
Routes	routes.yml	Routes should be split into files for each controller
Validation	validation.yml	http://stackoverflow.com/a/16759153/1982031
Doctrine Metadata	SomeEntity.orm.yml	http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/doctrine.html#add-mapping-information
HATEOS representations		http://hateoas-php.org/#yaml
JMS Serialiser		http://jmsyst.com/libs/serializer/master/reference/xml_reference
Controller Annotations for bundles

[leevigraham]

No objections means this is closed. Added to the wiki: https://github.com/newism/symfony2-standard-template/wiki/Annotations-vs-YAML-vs-XML