Comparison of data-serialization formats: Difference between revisions

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{{Short description|None}}

This is a '''comparison of [[data serialization]] [[file format|format]]sformats''', various ways to convert complex [[object (computer science)|object]]s to sequences of [[bit]]s. It does not include [[markup language]]s used exclusively as [[document file format]]s.

==Overview==

{| class="wikitable sortable mw-collapsible"

{{sort-under}}

{{sticky table start}}

{| class="wikitable sortable sort-under sticky-table-head" style="font-size:75%"

|-

! Name

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! Standard [[API]]s

! Supports [[zero-copy]] operations

|-

| [[Apache Arrow]]

| [[Apache Software Foundation]]

| {{n/a}}

| {{partial|''De facto''}}

| [https://arrow.apache.org/docs/format/Columnar.html Arrow Columnar Format]

| {{yes}}

| {{no}}

| {{yes}}

| {{yes|Built-in}}

| C, C++, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Julia, Matlab, Python, R, Ruby, Rust, Swift

| {{yes}}

|-

| [[Apache Avro]]

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| Java, Python, C++

| {{no}}

|-

| [[Apache Thrift]]

| [[Facebook]] (creator)<br>[[Apache Software Foundation|Apache]] (maintainer)

| {{n/a}}

| {{no}}

| [http://thrift.apache.org/static/files/thrift-20070401.pdf Original whitepaper]

| {{yes}}

| {{partial}}{{ref|thrifttxt|c}}

| {{no}}

| {{yes|Built-in}}

| C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, Erlang, Perl, Haskell, C#, Cocoa, JavaScript, Node.js, Smalltalk, OCaml, Delphi and other languages<ref>[https://thrift.apache.org/ Apache Thrift]</ref>

| {{n/a}}

|-

| [[ASN.1]]

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| [[CBOR]]

| Carsten Bormann, [[Paul Hoffman (engineer)|P. Hoffman]]

| [[MessagePack]]<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack/issues/258#issuecomment-449978394|title=CBOR relationship with msgpack|first1=Carsten|last1=Bormann|website=[[GitHub]] |date=2018-12-26|access-date=2023-08-14}}</ref>

| {{yes}}

| RFC 8949

Line 98 ⟶ 125:

| {{yes}}, <br/>through tagging

| {{yes|[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8610 CDDL]}}

| {{yes|[[FIDO_Alliance|FIDO2]]}}

| {{no}}

| {{no}}

|-

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| RFC author:<br>Yakov Shafranovich

| {{n/a}}

| {{partial|A myriad ofMyriad informal variants}}

| RFC 4180<br>(among others)

| {{no}}

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| {{Yes|[[Document Object Model|DOM]], [[Simple API for XML|SAX]], [[StAX]], [[XQuery]], [[XPath]]}}

| {{n/a}}

|-

| [[Extensible Data Notation]] (edn)

| [[Rich Hickey]] / Clojure community

| [[Clojure]]

| {{yes}}

| [https://github.com/edn-format/edn Official edn spec]

| {{no}}

| {{yes}}

| {{no}}

| {{no}}

| Clojure, Ruby, Go, C++, Javascript, Java, CLR, ObjC, Python<ref>{{cite web|url=https://github.com/edn-format/edn/wiki/Implementations|title=Implementations|website=[[GitHub]] }}</ref>

| {{no}}

|-

| [[FlatBuffers]]

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| {{yes}}

| {{yes|[https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6901 JSON Pointer (RFC{{nbsp}}6901)], or alternately, [http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/ JSONPath], [https://web.archive.org/web/20120922110739/http://bluelinecity.com/software/jpath/ JPath], [https://web.archive.org/web/20121203081945/http://www.jspon.org/ JSPON], [https://github.com/lloyd/JSONSelect json:select()]; and [[JSON-LD]]}}

| {{partial}}<br>([http://json-schema.org/ JSON Schema Proposal], [[ASN.1]] with [[JSON encoding rules|JER]], [http://www.kuwata-lab.com/kwalify/ Kwalify], [http{{Webarchive|url=https://rjbsweb.manxomearchive.org/rxweb/20210812231831/http://www.kuwata-lab.com/kwalify/ Rx]|date=2021-08-12 }}, [http://itemscriptrjbs.manxome.org/ItemscriptSchema.htmlrx/ Itemscript SchemaRx]), [[JSON-LD]]

| {{partial}}<br>([https://github.com/dscape/clarinet Clarinet], [https://www.sitepen.com/blog/jsonquery-data-querying-beyond-jsonpath JSONQuery] / [https://www.sitepen.com/blog/resource-query-language-a-query-language-for-the-web-nosql RQL], [http://goessner.net/articles/JsonPath/ JSONPath]), [[JSON-LD]]

| {{no}}

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| {{yes}}

| {{no}}

|-

| Preserves

| Tony Garnock-Jones

| -

| {{yes}}

| [https://preserves.dev/preserves.html Specification]

| {{yes|[https://preserves.dev/preserves-binary.html Yes]}}

| {{yes|[https://preserves.dev/preserves-text.html Yes]}}

| {{yes}}

| {{yes|[https://preserves.dev/preserves-schema.html Yes]}}

| {{n/a}}

| {{n/a}}

|-

| [[Property list]]

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| [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]], [[Netstring]]s

| {{partial|Largely ''de facto''}}

| [http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Sexp.txt "S-Expressions"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131007024815/http://people.csail.mit.edu/rivest/Sexp.txt |date=2013-10-07 }} [[Internet Draft]]

| {{yes}}, ''canonical representation''

| {{yes}}, ''advanced transport representation''

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| {{no}}

|

| {{n/a}}

|-

| [[Apache Thrift]]

| [[Facebook]] (creator)<br>[[Apache Software Foundation|Apache]] (maintainer)

| {{n/a}}

| {{no}}

| [http://thrift.apache.org/static/files/thrift-20070401.pdf Original whitepaper]

| {{yes}}

| {{partial}}{{ref|thrifttxt|c}}

| {{no}}

| {{yes|Built-in}}

| C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, Erlang, Perl, Haskell, C#, Cocoa, JavaScript, Node.js, Smalltalk, OCaml, Delphi and other languages<ref>[https://thrift.apache.org/ Apache Thrift]</ref>

| {{n/a}}

|-

Line 457 ⟶ 472:

| {{yes}}

| {{yes}}

| {{partial}}<br>([http://www.kuwata-lab.com/kwalify/ Kwalify] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210812231831/http://www.kuwata-lab.com/kwalify/ |date=2021-08-12 }}, [http://rjbs.manxome.org/rx/ Rx], built-in language type-defs)

| {{no}}

| {{no}}

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! Supports [[zero-copy]] operations

|}

{{sticky table end}}

{{ordered list

| list-style-type=lower-alpha

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==Syntax comparison of human-readable formats==

{| class="wikitable"

{{sticky table start}}

{| class="wikitable sortable sort-under sticky-table-head" style="font-size:75%"

|-

! Format

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A to Z,1,2,3</pre>

|-

| [[Extensible Data Notation|edn]]

! Format

| <code>nil</code>

! [[Nullable type|Null]]

| <code>true</code>

! [[Boolean data type|Boolean]] true

| <code>false</code>

! [[Boolean data type|Boolean]] false

| <code>685230</code><br><code>-685230</code>

! [[Integer (computer science)|Integer]]

| <code>6.8523015e+5</code>

! [[Floating-point]]

| <code>"A to Z"</code>, <code>"A \"up to\" Z"</code>

! [[String (computer science)|String]]

| <code>[true nil -42.1e7 "A to Z"]</code>

! [[Array data type|Array]]

| <code>{:kw 1, "42" true, "A to Z" [1 2 3]}</code>

! [[Associative array]]/[[Object (computer science)|Object]]

|-

| [[Ion (Serialization format)|Ion]]

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true

"A to Z", (1, 2, 3)</pre>

|-

! Format

! [[Nullable type|Null]]

! [[Boolean data type|Boolean]] true

! [[Boolean data type|Boolean]] false

! [[Integer (computer science)|Integer]]

! [[Floating-point]]

! [[String (computer science)|String]]

! [[Array data type|Array]]

! [[Associative array]]/[[Object (computer science)|Object]]

|-

| [[OpenDDL]]

Line 683 ⟶ 692:

| <code>(lI01\na(laF-421000000.0\naS'A to Z'\na.</code>

| <code>(dI42\nI01\nsS'A to Z'\n(lI1\naI2\naI3\nas.</code>

|-

| Preserves

| <code><null></code>

| <code>#t</code>

| <code>#f</code>

| <code>685230</code>

| <code>685230.15f</code>

| <code>"A to Z"</code>

| <code>[#t <null> -421000000.0f "A to Z"]</code>

| <code>{42: #f "A to Z": [1 2 3]}</code>

|-

| [[Property list]]<br>(plain text format)<ref name="gnustep">{{cite web|url=http://www.gnustep.org/resources/documentation/Developer/Base/Reference/NSPropertyList.html|title=NSPropertyListSerialization class documentation|website=www.gnustep.org|access-date=2009-10-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110519164921/http://gnustep.org/resources/documentation/Developer/Base/Reference/NSPropertyList.html|archive-date=2011-05-19|url-status=dead}}</ref>

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[extensionFieldThatIsAnEnum]: EnumValue

</syntaxhighlight>

|-

! Format

! [[Nullable type|Null]]

! [[Boolean data type|Boolean]] true

! [[Boolean data type|Boolean]] false

! [[Integer (computer science)|Integer]]

! [[Floating-point]]

! [[String (computer science)|String]]

! [[Array data type|Array]]

! [[Associative array]]/[[Object (computer science)|Object]]

|-

| [[S-expression]]s

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</struct></syntaxhighlight>

|}

{{sticky table end}}

{{ordered list

| list-style-type=lower-alpha

Line 865 ⟶ 855:

| {{note|lispstd}}This syntax is not compatible with the Internet-Draft, but is used by some dialects of [[Lisp (programming language)|Lisp]].

}}

==Comparison of binary formats==

<!--This table is meant to describe how the various datatypes are encoded in binary in the various formats.-->

{| class="wikitable"

{{sticky table start}}

{| class="wikitable sortable sort-under sticky-table-head sticky-table-col1" style="font-size:75%"

|- style="vertical-align:bottom;"

! Format

Line 876 ⟶ 869:

! [[Floating-point]]

! [[String (computer science)|String]]

! [[Array (data type)|Array]]

! [[Associative array]]/[[object (computer science)|object]]

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

Line 900 ⟶ 893:

| Data specifications {{mono|SET OF}} (unordered) and {{mono|SEQUENCE OF}} (guaranteed order)

| User definable type

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

| Binn

| <code>\x00</code>

| {{ubli

| True: <code>\x01</code>

| False: <code>\x02</code>

}}

| [[Big-endian]] [[2's complement]] signed and unsigned 8/16/32/64 bits

| {{ubli

| [[Single-precision floating-point format|Singles]]: [[big-endian]] [[binary32]]

| [[Double-precision floating-point format|Doubles]]: [[big-endian]] [[binary64]]

}}

| [[UTF-8]]-encoded, null-terminated, preceded by int8 or int32 string length in bytes

| Typecode (1 byte) + 1–4 bytes size + 1–4 bytes items count + list items

| Typecode (1 byte) + 1–4 bytes size + 1–4 bytes items count + key/value pairs

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

| [[BSON]]

Line 971 ⟶ 949:

| Length prefixed integer-encoded Unicode. Integers may represent enumerations or string table entries instead.

| Length prefixed set of items.

| {{No|Not in protocol.}}

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

| [[FlatBuffers]]

Line 1,042 ⟶ 1,020:

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

| [[Netstring]]s{{efn |group=binary |Interpretation of Netstrings is entirely application- or schema-dependent.}}

| {{No|Not in protocol.}}

| {{No|Not in protocol.}}

| {{No|Not in protocol.}}

| {{No|Not in protocol.}}

| Length-encoded as an ASCII string + ':' + data + ','<br>

Length counts only octets between ':' and ','

| {{No|Not in protocol.}}

| {{No|Not in protocol.}}

| Not in protocol.

|- style="vertical-align:top;"

| [[OGDL]] Binary

Line 1,119 ⟶ 1,097:

|

|}

{{sticky table end}}

{{notelist|group=binary}}

==See also==

*[[Comparison of document- markup languages]]

==References==