User:Kroggen/sandbox

Binn is a computer data serialization format used mainly for application data transfer. It stores primitive data types and data structures in a binary form.

Performance
The Binn format is designed to be compact and fast on readings. The elements are stored with theirs sizes to increase the read performance. The strings are null terminated so when read the library returns a pointer to them inside the buffer, avoiding memory allocation and data copying, an operation knwon as zero-copy.

Data types
Primitive data types:


 * null
 * boolean ( and  )
 * integer (up to 64 bits signed or unsigned)
 * floating point numbers (IEEE single/double precision)
 * string
 * blob (binary data)
 * User defined

Containers:


 * list
 * map (numeric key associative array)
 * object (text key associative array)

Format
Binn structures consist of a list of elements. Each element has a type that can be followed by the size, count of internal items, and the data itself:

boolean, null: [type]

int, float (storage: byte, word, dword or qword): [type][data]

string, blob: [type][size][data]

list, object, map: [type][size][count][data]

Example Encoding
A json data such as {"hello":"world"} is serialized in binn with the same size:

Example Code
Writing to a list in C:

Reading from that list: