Using = and : binding operators to delineate structure

I have messed around with "pseudo-XML" a lot. Oh, heck, whop cares about the XML part, except that it is a standard?  Structured, simple, data.  Trying to make stuff human readable, but also parseable.

Here's a new-to-me trick:

I often use key=value pairs.

Sometimes I use name: value.

I.e. both = and : are nice ways of binding name and value.

How about:

n1: nA=vA, nB=vB, nC=vC
=>  nA=vA, nB=vB, nC=vC
=>    

or whatever way you want to express name/value in XML.

I.e. : as a binding operator that can bind to a list of name=value pairs

Or non-XML, if that's what tickles your fancy.  JSON?:

{ "n1": {"nA": "vA", "nB": "vB", "nC": "vC" } }

(BTW, if I ever declare that I am doing pseudo-JSON, it will be to have fewer quotes.)

{ n1: {nA: vA, nB: vB, nC: vC } }

The biggest difference between shell script languages and regular languages is quoting. "Barewords" are a big characteristic of scripting languages.



:s can bind until the next colon - i.e, all colons have the same strength

n1: nA=vA, nB=vB, n2: v2, n3: nX=vX, nY=vY

{ n1: { nA:vA, nB:vB}, n2:v2, n3: {nX:vX, nY: vY} }

To get more levels deep, would need brackets, or indentation. more operators: ::==



Heck, I'm not trying to define a full language here.  There are at least 3 perfectly good data languages - XML, JSON, S-expressions.

I just want to define some notation that is a bit more user friendly, but can fall back to the other notations if necessary.