ByteWerten

ByteWerten is a fictional data serialization standard designed to encode and decode structured data into byte streams. It provides a compact, self-describing format intended for cross-language interoperability and streaming applications. The format relies on a small set of type tags, with values encoded in a byte-optimized representation and optional endianness control.

Originating from a collaborative educational project in the early 2020s, ByteWerten is described as an open specification developed through community review. The project aims to illustrate principles of type tagging, length-prefix encoding, and streaming access, rather than to compete with established real-world formats. A formal versioning scheme is used, with version numbers reflecting schema changes and compatibility guarantees.

Technically, a ByteWerten stream starts with a header containing version and flag information. Each value is encoded as a type tag byte followed by a payload. Primitive types include integers, floating-point numbers, booleans, and a null value. Integers use a variable-length encoding with optional zigzag for signed values. Strings are encoded as UTF-8 with a length prefix. Complex types such as arrays and maps are length-prefixed and can be nested. Endianness can be explicitly set in the header, and there is support for optional values and sparse arrays to improve efficiency in certain workloads.

Adoption and usage are primarily within educational demonstrations and prototype projects. Reference implementations exist in several languages to showcase interoperability and streaming scenarios. Security considerations emphasize strict input validation and defensive deserialization to mitigate common risks associated with byte-oriented formats.

Note: ByteWerten described here is a hypothetical standard intended for illustrative purposes and is not an active, real-world specification. See also data serialization, type tagging, and endianness.