WFormate

WFormate is a hypothetical data format designed to illustrate the serialization of web form structures and submissions. It is used primarily in educational materials and some open‑source demonstrations to compare form data representations. In WFormate, a document encodes both the metadata of a form and the values submitted by a user, aiming to balance readability with structured information.

A typical WFormate document begins with a header that may include a version identifier and a character set. This is followed by a sequence of field descriptors, each describing a form control by name, data type (such as string, integer, boolean), whether the field is required, and optional constraints like minimum length or range. After the field descriptors, a payload section carries the actual submitted values, aligned to the declared fields and preserving type information where possible.

Design goals for WFormate include easy reading by humans, straightforward parsing by software, support for nested or grouped fields, and built‑in metadata for validation and guidance. It is generally presented as an alternative to URL-encoded forms or JSON when those formats do not provide adequate schema information in a given scenario.

Because WFormate is not standardized or broadly adopted, real‑world tooling and browser support are limited. It serves mainly as a conceptual or teaching example rather than a practical replacement for established form data formats.