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4. Supported types

This page describes what SharpYaml can serialize/deserialize out of the box.

SharpYaml always supports:

• null
• scalars (strings, numbers, booleans)
• sequences (arrays/lists)
• mappings (objects and dictionaries)

Primitive CLR types

The built-in scalar converters support the following C# primitive types:

• bool
• byte, sbyte
• short, ushort
• int, uint
• long, ulong
• nint, nuint
• float, double
• decimal
• char
• string
• DateTime, DateTimeOffset (roundtrip/ISO-8601)
• DateOnly, TimeOnly (ISO-8601, available on .NET 6+)
• Guid
• TimeSpan
• Half (available on .NET 5+)
• Int128, UInt128 (available on .NET 7+)
• enums (by name; numeric forms are accepted when possible)
• nullable forms of the above (T?)

YAML numeric syntax

Integer parsing follows YAML 1.2 core conventions and supports:

• underscores as digit separators: 1_000_000
• base prefixes: 0xFF, 0o755, 0b1010
• optional sign: +1, -1

Floating-point parsing supports:

• +/- .inf
• .nan

Collections

Common collection shapes are supported:

• arrays (T[])
• List<T>
• HashSet<T> / ISet<T>
• IEnumerable<T> / IReadOnlyList<T> / IReadOnlyCollection<T> / IList<T> / ICollection<T>
• immutable collections: ImmutableArray<T>, ImmutableList<T>, ImmutableHashSet<T>
• dictionaries with string keys: Dictionary<string, TValue>, IDictionary<string, TValue>, IReadOnlyDictionary<string, TValue>
• dictionaries with scalar keys: Dictionary<TKey, TValue>, IDictionary<TKey, TValue>, IReadOnlyDictionary<TKey, TValue> (for example int, Guid, enums)

For non-string dictionary keys, SharpYaml currently supports scalar mapping keys only (complex mapping keys are not supported).

Custom types

For custom types, SharpYaml uses an object converter that maps members to mapping keys. You can control this with:

• naming policies (PropertyNamingPolicy)
• JSON/YAML attributes (for example [JsonPropertyName], [YamlPropertyName])
• converters (YamlConverter<T> and YamlConverterAttribute)