colon3 file format
Welcome to the Home page of the colon3 file format!
A binary file format that purrs like a cat.
A design that wasn't created within 2 weeks. It was created in 1 week.
:3
What is it?
colon3 is a binary file data format for general-purpose data serialization,
primarily targeting the simplicity of cross-platform configuration files.
This format compacts lots of data into a structure that computers love.
See specifications: link here.
Name
colon3 is based on the emoticon of a cat face. The design closely relates to the characteristics of a cat.
Read the full explanation in the "Name" section of the specification document.
Design
Official standard has minimal syntax and grammar structure by using control characters and implicit rather than explicit.
A schema is recommended as well.
Standard
colon3's specification defines a base standard.
However, the specification allows flexible standards to be used,
so any processor can define platform-specific standards to create, modify, or improve upon the standard.
Use cases
colon3 is an alternative approach to storing data, sacrificing human readability for machine efficiency.
It focuses on reducing filesize by compacting data as tightly as possible into a binary format
while preserving some compatibility with human-readable formats and friendly towards many modern programming languages.
Because of this design, it can be used to serialize complex data structures,
such as data stores, configuration files, and video game savefiles.
However, because its design is simple, it does not guarantee protection from malicious alteration attacks.
Its goal is never to be a secure format. Therefore, it isn't recommended to be used for critical data.
Format specification
REVISION 1 IS STILL A DRAFT!!! See Revision 0 instead.
For information about the full specification, check out its dedicated page: link here.
Previous revision history (rendered document, git commit):
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