Tdb Overview

Tdb “Text DataBase” format is a plain text human readable typed database storage format.

Tdb is an ideal alternative to CSV. A Tdb file can store any number of tables. Every table is named, and every field has a name and a type. Types are not-null by default, but can be nullable if required. The seven supported types include strings which respect all whitespace (including newlines), and which may contain any UTF-8 characters (using XML-escaping conventions), binary (e.g., for images), Booleans, numbers (integer and real), and dates and datetimes.

Tdb libraries are available in Go and Python with a Rust library in development. The Tdb format is designed to be very easy to parse, so creating a Tdb library in virtually any language should be straightforward.

• Datatypes
• Examples
  • CSV
  • Database
  • Config
  • Minimal Tdb Files
• Timezones and Metadata
• Libraries (Go, Python, Rust)
• BNF
• Supplementary
  • Vim Support
  • Tdb Logo

Datatypes

Tdb supports the following seven built-in datatypes.

All fields are not null by default and must contain a valid value of the field's type. To make a field nullable, append ? to its typename, e.g., int?.

Strings may not include &, < or >, so if they are needed, they must be replaced by the XML/HTML escapes &, <, and > respectively. Strings respect any whitespace they contain, including newlines.

Each field value is separated from its neighbor by whitespace, and conventionally records are separated by newlines. However, in practice, since every field in every record must be present (even if only a null value or an empty bytes or string), records may be laid out however you like.

Where whitespace is allowed (or required) it may consist of one or more spaces, tabs, or newlines in any combination.

Examples

CSV

Although widely used, the CSV format is not standardized and has a number of problems. Tdb is a standardized alternative that can distinguish fieldnames from data records, can handle multiline text (including text with commas and quotes) without formality, and can store one—or more—tables in a single Tdb file.

Here's a simple CSV file:

Date,Price,Quantity,ID,Description
"2022-09-21",3.99,2,"CH1-A2","Chisels (pair), 1in & 1¼in"
"2022-10-02",4.49,1,"HV2-K9","Hammer, 2lb"
"2022-10-02",5.89,1,"SX4-D1","Eversure Sealant, 13-floz"

Here's a Tdb equivalent:

[PriceList Date date Price real Quantity int ID str Description str
%
2022-09-21 3.99 2 <CH1-A2> <Chisels (pair), 1in &amp; 1¼in> 
2022-10-02 4.49 1 <HV2-K9> <Hammer, 2lb> 
2022-10-02 5.89 1 <SX4-D1> <Eversure Sealant, 13-floz> 
]

Every table starts with a tablename followed by one or more fields. Each field consists of a fieldname and a type.

Superficially this may not seem much of an improvement on CSV (apart from Tbd's superior string handling and strong typing), but as the next example shows, a Tdb file can contain one or more tables, not just one like CSV.

Database

Database files aren't normally human readable and usually require specialized tools to read and modify their contents. Yet many databases are relatively small (both in size and number of tables), and would be more convenient to work with if human readable. For these, Tdb format provides a viable alternative. For example:

[Customers CID int Company str Address str? Contact str Email str
%
50 <Best People> <123 Somewhere> <John Doe> <j@doe.com> 
19 <Supersuppliers> ? <Jane Doe> <jane@super.com> 
]
[Invoices INUM int CID int Raised_Date date Due_Date date Paid bool Description str?
%
152 50 2022-01-17 2022-02-17 no <COD> 
153 19 2022-01-19 2022-02-19 yes ?
]
[Items IID int INUM int Delivery_Date date Unit_Price real Quantity int Description str
%
1839 152 2022-01-16 29.99 2 <Bales of hay> 
1840 152 2022-01-16 5.98 3 <Straps> 
1620 153 2022-01-19 11.5 1 <Washers (1-in)> 
]

In the Customers table the second customer's Address and in the Invoices table, the second invoice's Description both have nulls as their values. (No other fields may have nulls only these fields are nullable).

Config

Configuration files often consist of key–value pairs or grouped key–value pairs. For example, a .ini file like this:

symbols=latin
[Window]
x=32
y=28
[Colors]
foreground=lightyellow
background=#FFE7FF

could be represented by a .tdb like this:

[config_int key str value int
%
<x> 32
<y> 28
]
[config_str key str value str
%
<foreground> <lightyellow>
<background> <#FFE7FF>
<symbols> <latin>
]

And if grouping were required, like this:

[config_int group str? key str value int
%
<Window> <x> 32
<Window> <y> 28
]
[config_str group str? key str value str
%
<Colors> <foreground> <lightyellow>
<Colors> <background> <#FFE7FF>
? <symbols> <latin>
]

Here, we've allowed group to be null (equivalent to the .ini "General" group), but we could easily have made it not-null and required a group name for all groups.

Minimal Tdb Files

[T f int
%
]

This file has a single table called T which has a single field called f of type int, and no records.

[T f int
%
0
]

This is like the previous table but now with one record containing the value 0.

[T f int?
%
0
?
]

Again like the previous table, but now with two records, the first containing the value 0, and the second containing null which is permitted since the field's type is nullable.

Timezones and Metadata

Tdb does not have direct timezone support. There are three simple solutions for this.

If all the dates in the database are in the same timezone, then one approach is to store all the dates as UTC. Alternatively, add a tiny configuration table with the timezone data, for example:

[Config key str value str?
%
<timezone> <+02:30>
]

If, however, the dates being stored have varying timezones, then add another column specifically for the timezone. Something along these lines:

[Readings meter str reading real when date timezone str
%
<EX194B4> 1932.49 2024-11-17 <-03:00>
<V1938DX> 8492.1 2024-10-30 <+02:30>
]

If comments or metadata are required, simply create an additional table to store this data and add it to the Tdb. For example, use a Config table as shown above.

Libraries

We will happily add links to implementations in other languages.

BNF

Tdb files use the UTF-8 encoding. Tdb syntactical elements are all ASCII, so it is possible to read Tdb files as bytes (as the Go library does) or as Unicode characters (as the Python library does). Each Tdb file consists of one or more tables.

TDB         ::= TABLE+
TABLE       ::= OWS '[' OWS TABLEDEF OWS '%' OWS RECORD* OWS ']' OWS
TABLEDEF    ::= IDENFIFIER (RWS FIELDDEF)+ # IDENFIFIER is the tablename
FIELDDEF    ::= IDENFIFIER RWS FIELDTYPE # IDENFIFIER is the fieldname
FIELDTYPE   ::= ('bool' | 'bytes' | 'date' | 'datetime' | 'int' | 'real' | 'str') NULL?
RECORD      ::= OWS VALUE (RWS VALUE)*
VALUE       ::= BOOL | BYTES | DATE | DATETIME | INT | REAL | STR | NULL # NULL is only allowed for nullable field types
BOOL        ::= /[FfTtYyNn01]/
BYTES       ::= '(' (OWS [A-Fa-f0-9]{2})* OWS ')'
DATE        ::= /\d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\d/  # basic ISO8601 YYYY-MM-DD format
DATETIME    ::= /\d\d\d\d-\d\d-\d\dT\d\d(\d\d(\d\d)?)?/ 
INT         ::= /[-+]?\d+/ 
REAL        ::= ... # standard or scientific notation
STR         ::= /[<][^<>]*?[>]/ # newlines allowed, and &amp; &lt; &gt; supported i.e., XML
NULL        ::= '?'
IDENFIFIER  ::= /[_\p{L}]\w{0,31}/ # Must start with a letter or underscore; may not be a built-in constant
OWS         ::= /[\s\n]*/
RWS         ::= /[\s\n]+/ # in some cases RWS is actually optional

Notes

• Every field is not null by default and must contain a valid value of the field's type. To make a field nullable, append ? to its typename, e.g., str?; for nullable fields the value must either be one of the field's type (e.g., str) or null ?.
• A Tdb file must contain at least one table even if it is empty, i.e., has no records.
• A Tdb writer should always write bools as F or T; but a Tdb reader should accept any of F, f, N, n, 0, for false, and any of T, t, Y, y, 1, for true.
• Within any .tdb file each tablename must be unique, and within each table each fieldname must be unique.
• No tablename or fieldname (i.e., no identifier) may be the same as a built-in constant or bool value:
  bool, bytes, date, datetime, f, F, int, n, N, real, str, t, T, y, Y

Supplementary

Vim Support

If you use the vim editor, simple color syntax highlighting is available. Copy tdb.vim into your $VIM/syntax/ folder and add this line (or similar) to your .vimrc or .gvimrc file:

au BufRead,BufNewFile,BufEnter *.tdb set ft=tdb|set expandtab|set textwidth=80

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