DTXT — Data Text Format

A project of the Open Tech Foundation.

🚀 Try the DTXT Playground

Caution

EXPERIMENTAL PRE-RELEASE

DTXT is currently in an experimental, pre-release state. The specification and implementations provided here are for research and feedback purposes only. APIs and document grammar are subject to breaking changes.

Overview

DTXT (Data Text Format) is a human-readable, structured data format designed for configuration and data interchange. It emphasizes predictability, fast parsing, and explicit typing via constructor literals.

Key Features

• Unquoted Keys: Clean, minimal syntax.
• Backtick Strings: No more escaping double quotes.
• Explicit Literals: T, F, N for True, False, and Null.
• Constructor Literals: Native support for Dates D(), BigNumbers BN(), and Binary B().
• Single-line Comments: Use // for notes and documentation.
• Fast Parsing: Designed for direct byte-level processing.

Documentation

• DTXT 1.0 Specification (Draft)
• Migration Guide (JSON → DTXT)
• Edge Cases & Constraints
• Standardized Error Codes
• Comparison with Other Formats

Testing

• Conformance Test Suite

Reference Implementations

The ref-impl/ directory contains reference implementations for various languages:

• Python
• TypeScript
• Go
• Rust

📊 Benchmark Results

DTXT consistently achieves a reduced payload size (16%–20%) compared to JSON. Most notably, optimized DTXT implementations can outperform native JSON parsers in speed.

Key Metrics (30,000 entries)

metric	language	JSON	DTXT	difference
📏 Payload Size	Go	6.31 MB	5.16 MB	📉 -18.2%
	Rust	6.31 MB	5.33 MB	📉 -15.5%
	TypeScript	6.31 MB	5.28 MB	📉 -16.4%
	Python	7.11 MB	5.96 MB	📉 -16.2%
⏱️ Parsing Time	Go	90.6 ms	67.6 ms	🚀 25% faster
	Rust	72.2 ms	50.8 ms	🚀 30% faster
	TypeScript	40.0 ms	326.1 ms	8.1x slower
	Python (Rust Ext)	102.5 ms	93.4 ms	🚀 9% faster
✍️ Serialization	Go	103.8 ms	49.2 ms	🚀 52% faster
	Rust	15.4 ms	37.5 ms	2.4x slower
	TypeScript	24.5 ms	178.1 ms	7.2x slower
	Python	77.3 ms	212.0 ms	2.7x slower

Note

TypeScript benchmarks compare the DTXT reference implementation against Bun's native JSON library.

License

This project is dedicated to the public domain under the CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication.