colonseparated

Colon-separated, or colon-delimited, refers to data in which individual fields are separated by the colon character (:). This delimiter is widely used in Unix-like systems for simple, human-readable text formats that are easy to construct and parse with basic string operations.

Common uses include environment variables and system files. The PATH environment variable, for example, is a colon-separated list of directories that the system searches for executables: PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin. In many Unix configuration files, user and system records also use colon-separated fields; /etc/passwd and /etc/group are canonical examples, with lines such as root:x:0:0:root:/root:/bin/bash, where each colon marks a distinct field.

Parsing and handling considerations are central to colon-separated data. Because the colon is also a legitimate character in some field values, systems may impose restrictions or use escaping to preserve data integrity. In shell contexts, splitting on the colon is straightforward with simple commands or string methods; in other environments, dedicated parsers or libraries may be used to support escaping, quoting, or multi-valued fields.

Advantages of colon-separated data include compactness and readability in plain text, along with simplicity for scripting and quick inspection. Limitations arise when field values may contain colons, or when cross-platform data exchange requires a delimiter common to Windows, such as a semicolon or a comma. In such cases, alternative formats or explicit escaping strategies are preferred.

See also: delimited text, environment variables, /etc/passwd, /etc/group, path separation.