Transportformat

Transportformat is a term used to describe the representation and packaging of data for transmission between systems or components, often sitting between the application payload and the transport protocol. It defines how information is encoded, structured, and annotated with metadata to enable reliable delivery, interpretation, and validation across boundaries. The choice of transport format affects interoperability, efficiency, error handling, and extensibility. Common characteristics include serialization method (text vs binary), schema or contract, support for streaming, compression, and metadata.

In practice, transport formats are used across domains. Web services and APIs commonly use text-based formats such as JSON and XML for readability and interoperability, while binary formats like Protocol Buffers, Thrift, or Avro are used for compact transmission and forward-compatibility. Media and real-time communications use transport formats like MPEG-TS, RTP, or WebRTC packaging to carry audio and video data over networks. Messaging systems employ containers or frames defined by protocols such as AMQP or MQTT, with payloads often encoded in JSON, XML, or binary schemas. Data pipelines may treat formats like CSV, Parquet, or ORC as transport-ready representations when moving data between systems, though some distinguish storage formats from transport formats.

Standards and governance for transport formats include versioning, schemas, and validation rules to maintain compatibility and evolution. See also data serialization and transport protocols.