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RSS December 10, 2013   Opinion: A formal language for data
definitions Opinion: A formal language for data definitions
November 20, 2012 | By Niklas Frykholm  November 20, 2012 | By
Niklas Frykholm More: Console/PC, Programming  In this reprinted
#altdevblogaday opinion piece, BitSquid co-founder Niklas
Frykholm explains why data definitions need a formal language,
and shares some ideas for making this language a reality.  Each
section in the file starts with a header with the format:  4
bytes header identifier 2 bytes header length 0--20 bytes extra
data in header  The extra data is described below.  It is even
worse when I create my own data formats (for our engine's
runtime data). I would like to document those formats in a clear
and unambiguous way, so that others can understand them. But
since I have no standardized way of doing that, I too have to
resort to ad-hoc methods.   For data layouts, a formal
definition language would allow us to