HumanReadable

Humanreadable, sometimes written as human-readable, is a property of information that is designed to be easily understood by humans without specialized tools or extensive decoding. It is often defined in opposition to machine-readable, which prioritizes automated parsing and compact representation. Readability depends on language familiarity, typography, structure, and context; what is readable to one audience may not be to another.

In computing, human-readable formats include plain text, well-formatted JSON, YAML, XML, and configuration files with descriptive keys and comments. Logs intended for devs or operators are typically human-friendly, with line breaks, indentation, and clear timestamps. By contrast, many data exchanges use compact, binary, or compressed forms for efficiency or security, which are machine-friendly but harder for people to read.

The choice between human- and machine-readability involves trade-offs. Human-readable data is easier to inspect, edit, and debug but may consume more space and processing time. Machine-readable data enables fast parsing and smaller size but often requires tooling, schemas, or documentation to interpret correctly. Many formats aim to balance both aspects, offering readable defaults with options for compact encodings.

Design practices for human-readable content include descriptive identifiers, consistent naming, documentation, and the use of whitespace and comments where allowed. Internationalization, character encoding (such as UTF-8), and self-describing schemas (for example, using key-value pairs) enhance accessibility. Writers and developers should consider the intended audience and longevity when choosing a format.

Note that "human-readable" is not an objective standard; readability varies by user and domain, and the term is sometimes used rhetorically. In practice, it often signals a preference for transparency, ease of maintenance, and collaboration.