From a5b0e918f886bb7977453a4b2a02b7643916cf89 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bryan Newbold <bnewbold@archive.org>
Date: Thu, 28 May 2020 02:59:23 -0700
Subject: init repo with README

---
 .gitignore | 21 ++++++++++++++++++++
 README.md  | 66 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 2 files changed, 87 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 .gitignore
 create mode 100644 README.md

diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..81a4762
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,21 @@
+*.o
+*.a
+*.pyc
+#*#
+*~
+*.swp
+.*
+*.tmp
+*.old
+*.profile
+*.bkp
+*.bak
+[Tt]humbs.db
+*.DS_Store
+build/
+_build/
+src/build/
+*.log
+
+# Don't ignore this file itself
+!.gitignore
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1de9277
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,66 @@
+
+aft: ASCII Framed Tables
+===========================
+
+Like TSV, but using ASCII control characters to distinguish headers, fields, and rows.
+
+Store tabular data in files, or for simple structured data transfer between
+programs and over networks.
+
+file suffix: `.aft`
+
+mimetype (speculative): `text/aft`
+
+## Format
+
+The special characters are:
+
+- `0x01  1 SOH`: "Start of Header"
+- `0x02  2 STX`: "Start of Text"
+- `0x03  3 ETX`: "End of Text"
+- `0x1C 28  FS`: "File Separator"
+- `0x1D 29  GS`: "Group Separator"
+- `0x1E 30  RS`: "Record Separator"
+- `0x1F 31  US`: "Unit Separator"
+
+Tools and file readers check the start of stream. If it is `0x01`, can treat as
+`aft`; otherwise treat as regular text. `0x02` terminates header section and
+starts contents. Header records could somehow include:
+
+- column names
+- column types (default is string)
+- indicate sort order (columns, asc/desc)
+
+General structure of tables is:
+
+- units: for arrays of values in a cell (no other structure)
+    => could be "array" (variable-length, single type) or "tuple" (fixed-length, names and types for each slot)
+- records: for cells in 2-dimensional grid
+- groups: rows of table (or, use newline, so regular tools work?)
+- file: unused; could be "sheets"? sort of redundant with "end of text" character
+
+Comments and annotations are not supported.
+
+## Extras
+
+Text editor support: coloring, easy entry of special chars, highlighting
+errors, tab-separation.
+
+Unfortunately, my terminal (xterm) interprets Ctrl-V Ctrl-_ as "resize smaller".
+
+## Column Types
+
+Encoding is that of JSON or TOML. Values can be:
+
+- string (UTF-8) (default if not specifier)
+- integer number
+- floating point number
+- boolean
+- date, timestamp
+- null
+
+## Examples
+
+    cargo run --bin aft-demo | cat -v
+    cargo run --bin aft-demo | cut -f1 -d$'\036' | cat -v
+
-- 
cgit v1.2.3