Metaformats

A metaformat (or meta format) is a generic low-level file format used as a basis for defining high-level file formats.

Whether a format is a metaformat is ultimately a judgment call. There are no definitive answers to questions like: What is the difference between a container format and a metaformat? Or a serialization format and a metaformat? Is CSV a metaformat, or is it a database or a spreadsheet format? Should TIFF and PDF be considered to be metaformats, given all the subformats of them that have been defined?

Another reasonable, but different, definition of metaformat is "a format that describes other formats".

Formats that implement other formats

• Boxes/atoms format
• EBML
• IFF
• ISO Base Media File Format
• Microsoft Compound File
• ODL (NASA Object Description Language)
• RIFF
• SGML
• XML

Formats that describe other formats

• BFD (Binary Format Description)
• CSV Schema (describes format of CSV file)
• Citation Style Language (describes bibliographic citation formats)
• DFDL (Data Format Description Language) - a file format for describing file formats (how meta can you get?)
• XMDP (XHTML Meta Data Profiles)
• XML Schema Definition

Related: File identification software, Format validation and analysis software

Miscellaneous / Uncategorized

• ZIP - Was not intended to be a metaformat, but is sometimes used as one, such as with Jar, OpenRaster, and some of the other formats in Category:ZIP based file formats.

Links

• W3C: Meta formats