Nick Sabalausky:
> Doesn't really matter, since binary data (assuming a format that isn't over-engineered) is already smaller than the same data in text form.

If you take into account compression too, sometimes text compressed is smaller than the same binary file and the same binary file compressed (because good compressors are often able to spot redundancy better in text files than in arbitrary structured binary files).


>I'm not really sure why you're bringing up compression...?<

Because experiments have shown it solves or reduces a lot the problem you were talking about.


> Do you mean that the actual disk access time of a text format can be brought down to the time of an equivalent binary format by storing the text file in a compressed form?

It's not always true, but it happens often enough, or the difference becomes tolerable and balances the clarity advantages of the textual format (and sometimes the actual time becomes less, but this is less common).

Bye,
bearophile