Re: Data Format Brainstorm!!

In article <cacclin.789345630@vanbc>, cacclin@vanbc.wimsey.com (Stephen Cacclin) writes: : I am looking for some helpful input from the various comp.* communities. : : Basically I want to know how various databases, languages, protocols etc. : store different data types. In other words, how are signed/unsigned integers, : floating point numbers, date types, booleans etc. written to disk? : If the data is meant to be seen by one program (such as a database server), (which then forwards the data to anyone who asks for it), then it could store it exactly as it is seen in memory - a binary image - it does not matter whether it is a character string, or a signed integer. If the data needs to be exported, it can be converted to, say, comma-delimited ascii. If the data is meant to be stored in a readily accessible form accross different architectures, then XDR (eXternal Data Representation) is a good approach - the format popular in scientific communities is HDF (Hierarchical Data Format), which stores a schema description of the data, and the data itself, in XDR format, all in one file. Check http://hdf.ncsa.uiuc.edu:8001 for HDF details.