Collection Rules

Validation rules for collections — schema-less records, empty records, errors.

Records without a schema

If no schema is defined, each record may have a different shape, and values are mapped to positional indices (0, 1, 2, …):

---
~ John Doe, 20, female
~ true, false
~ marketing, 123, { Z Street, Los Angeles, CA }

The first record loads as { "0": "John Doe", "1": 20, "2": "female" }, and so on.

It is good practice to define a schema even though collections allow schema-less records.

Empty records

A record consisting of just ~ is an empty object ({}). It is valid only if every field in the schema is optional and/or nullable:

~ $schema: { name?*: string, age?*: { int, max: 25 } }
---
~ John, 25     # ✓
~ William      # ✓ (age omitted)
~              # ✓ (empty object; all fields optional/nullable)

If any field is required, an empty record fails:

~ $schema: { name: string, age?*: { int, max: 25 } }
---
~ John, 25     # ✓
~              # ✗ value-required — name is required

Independent validation & error handling

Each record is validated independently. A failing record is marked as an error; the rest are unaffected:

~ $schema: { name: string, age: { int, max: 25 } }
---
~ James, 20    # ✓
~ Alex, 30     # ✗ invalid-range — age exceeds 25
~ Bob, 22      # ✓

A conformant processor SHOULD collect per-record errors and continue, rather than stopping at the first failure.

See Also

• Collection · Creating Collections

• Parser Behavior & Recovery