Data format

Generally speaking, a data format is a serialization of a data structure. Often, "data format" refers to a text-based file format, but sometimes, can refer to a set of indexed data files such as a database. It may also refer to a serialization as part of a wire protocol.

There are many data formats that are key for interoperability for a good interoperable PIM/CRM/wiki/notetaking system/task management system. There are the pieces that the obvious components (because many systems support them already):


 * Simple textual data serializations:
 * JSON
 * YAML
 * XML
 * OPML - which is the XML format that Workflowy exports, and other things use
 * Plain text serializations of rich text
 * Markdown (usually GitHub-Flavored Markdown (GFM), but CommonMark is pretty nifty too)
 * Org-mode format
 * Other wiki formats
 * HTML
 * Storage
 * Git versioning
 * POSIX filesystem - small text files, organized in directories, with symlinks and maybe even hard links to work around the constraints of storing things in a strict hierarchy
 * Various container file formats, such as zipfiles, .tar.gz, .tar.bz, .tar, .war