BINARY2

BINARY2 is a binary data encoding standard designed for compact, reliable representation of binary payloads in digital communication and storage systems. It is presented as the successor to an earlier format known as BINARY1 and aims to improve efficiency for small-to-medium payloads while preserving straightforward parsing and error detection.

Frame structure: Each encoded message consists of a two-byte header followed by a payload and a two-byte CRC-16. The header encodes a version field and the length of the payload. A simple bit-stuffing rule prevents accidental delimiter sequences in the payload, ensuring byte-aligned parsing in streaming channels.

Encoding rules: The payload is generated by grouping the input bitstream into bytes, with optional run-length encoding for long runs of zero bits to improve compression on certain data classes. BINARY2 chooses between raw bytes and RLE blocks automatically, based on a lightweight heuristic embedded in the encoder. The design is intentionally lean to enable implementation in software libraries and hardware decoders.

Implementation and usage: Reference implementations exist for C, Python, and Rust, and are used in some embedded systems and data-logging pipelines. BINARY2 is favored where there is a need for predictable framing, moderate compression, and simple error detection without the complexity of general-purpose compressors.

Relation to other formats: It is positioned as a middle-ground between raw binary transfer and more aggressive compression schemes. It is not a universal replacement for all data types and is typically chosen for stream-oriented protocols and firmware update packages. See also BINARY1, Base64, and CRC-16.