When to use mapping or sequence to define an array in a schema file?

Question

I need to define an array in my onlyone.settings.yml file to store this values:

onlyone_node_types:
  book: book
  test: test

In my onlyone.schema.yml file I have this:

module.settings:
  type: config_object
  label: 'Only One settings'
  mapping:
    onlyone_node_types:
      type: sequence
      label: 'Configured content types to have Only One node'
      sequence:
        type: string
        label: 'Content type machine name'

But I don't know if I need to use a sequence or a mapping type in my case.

I read in the Configuration schema/metadata page this:

Note that you may also encounter a slightly different sequence definition where the type of the sequence items is defined as a strictly one item list. This format is deprecated and will be removed in Drupal 9:

So, I don't know if I need to use mapping or sequence in my case to define my array.

Answer 1

A sequence is an unlimited list of identically structured elements. A mapping is a limited set of keys, each key has a possibly different structure.

Your key has node types, so you're storing a list of node type ids, which means a sequence with an inner type string. Exactly what you have.

If you'd use a mapping, you could only store book and test, but test could be an integer (or mapping, or sequence, ...) while book is a string.

The note has nothing to do with sequence vs mapping, it just refers to an old way of defining the type in the sequence and would look like this:

onlyone_node_types:
  type: sequence
  label: 'Configured content types to have Only One node'
  sequence:
    -  type: string
       label: 'Content type machine name'

PS: I'd would convert that to a numbered list, which will then be stored like this:

onlyone_node_types:
  - book
  - test