# human-intermediate-formats

**Repository Path**: mirrors_terinjokes/human-intermediate-formats

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: human-intermediate-formats
- **Description**: List of human-editable intermediate file formats
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: Not specified
- **Default Branch**: trunk
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2020-11-10
- **Last Updated**: 2026-04-18

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

#+TITLE: Human Intermediate Formats

This repository documents file formats that can be considered human-editable intermediates. A "human intermediate format" can be describes as one that:

+ Be feasibly created directly by a human directly, or with simple =printf=-style commands.
+ Encode information without any loss of information in the imtermediate step.
+ Not be a direct serialization of a file format's internal structures.

For inclusion on this list, the following questions are asked:

+ Does this file format allow for simple programs to interoperate with more complex programs?
+ Does this file format work to visualize diffs using git's =textconv= feature?

** Formats
+ *[[https://github.com/markc/midicomp][midicomp]]* (=midi=, =mid=) Supports MIDI (SMF formats 0 and 1).
+ *[[http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/#formats][Portable Anymap Format]]* (=pbm=, =pgm=, =ppm=, =pnm=) black & white, grayscale, and 8-bit color images. 16- and 32-bit colors as extensions.
  + Note that Portable Arbitrary Map, also part of the Netpbm project, is /not/ a human intermediate format, as there is no "plain" representation.

** Honorable Mentions
+ *[[http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/files/qpdf-manual.html#ref.qdf][QDF]]* represents a PDF file as a decompressed, destreamed, and pretty-printed file (while still being a valid PDF file). QDF makes it more feasible to edit a PDF file in a text editor, [[https://gist.github.com/terinjokes/d2e4b9492b9ca8a02fe3276b27825089][or distribute patches]]. However, it doesn't belong in the main list, as there's still some data encoded in raw binary.