[SOLVED] Is there a human readable machine control file format

Is there a human readable machine control file format

I am looking for a generic machine control file format to interface with a device. The device consists of various valves, pump, and heaters, and is running embedded C. I would like to be able to control the sequence these devices activate in a 'script' that is defined by a file. It would be nice if the format also supported loops or conditional statements, and it would be advantageous if a non-technical user could understand and write the script file. The file will be parsed by the machine's firmware.

Something like the below to repeat the instructions 5 times:

LOOP, 5
    VALVE, ON, 100ms
    HEATER, ON, 200degrees
    PAUSE, 60s
    VALVE, OFF
END

Is there such a format? Or would I be better off implementing my own? A quick look has shown that GCode can support looping in more recent versions, but it is not very human readable.

Solution

Before inventing your own solution, you might want to consider using a scripting language, such as Lua or Tcl. These are implemented in C, the core library of the language is (from memory) quite compact, and they provide a C API for extending the language with new functionality.