Attention

TYPO3 v8 has reached its end-of-life March 31st, 2020 and is not maintained by the community anymore. Looking for a stable version? Use the version switch on the top left.

There is no further ELTS support. It is recommended that you upgrade your project and use a supported version of TYPO3.

Introduction

TypoScript is internally handled as a (large) multidimensional PHP array (see "What Is TypoScript?"). Values are arranged in a tree-like hierarchy. The "branches" are indicated with periods (".") - a syntax borrowed from for example JavaScript and which conveys the idea of defining objects/properties.

Example

myObject = [value 1]
myObject.myProperty = [value 2]
myObject.myProperty.firstProperty = [value 3]
myObject.myProperty.secondProperty = [value 4]

Referring to myObject we might call it: "an object with the value [value 1] and the property, 'myProperty' with the value [value 2]. Furthermore 'myProperty' has its own two properties, 'firstProperty' and 'secondProperty' with a value each ([value 3] and [value 4])."

The TYPO3 CMS backend contains tools that can be used to visualize the tree structure of TypoScript. They are described in the relevant section further of the two using reference documents TypoScript Reference and TSconfig Reference. The above piece of TypoScript would look like this: