Standardformater

Standardformater is a software component that converts heterogeneous data into a single, standardized textual representation. It can function as a library, a microservice, or a standalone tool and is primarily used to enable reliable data exchange, consistent logging, and stable archival across heterogeneous systems. The concept emphasizes determinism, meaning the same input yields the same output regardless of context.

Core capabilities include type normalization for primitives (numbers, booleans, strings), structured data (arrays and records), and temporal values (dates and times) with canonical formatting. It supports locale-aware formatting options, but can enforce a fixed locale for portability. It offers precision and rounding controls, timezone normalization, and handling for missing or null values. Extensibility is provided via backends or plugins that define how each data type maps to the standard form.

Output formats can be built-in or pluggable, including canonical JSON-like representations, XML-like trees, or custom plain-text schemas. A standardformater typically guarantees idempotence and ordering guarantees for map keys, and it may allow user-defined schemas to enforce field presence and value constraints. It also includes validation hooks to detect schema violations during formatting.

Use cases include data interchange between systems with different internal representations, logging where consistent structure is needed for analytics, data migration, and long-term archival where a stable, searchable form is required.

While the exact features vary across implementations, most standardformaters aim for interoperability, reproducibility, and clarity. They must balance expressiveness with performance and address challenges such as complex nested data, large-scale datasets, and evolving schema requirements.