Timeline for Binary vs. ASCII file size
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 29, 2020 at 17:28 | comment | added | podperson | Why does anyone who recommends CSV not get howled down?! Use TSV. It's just as well supported, better defined, simpler, more compact, and equally readable. | |
| Sep 9, 2013 at 0:34 | comment | added | Mike Dunlavey | + I stick to binary whenever possible, for accuracy, compactness, peace of mind, and (especially) speed. Then if I need further compactness, I can zip it. If I need to be able to visually read the contents, I can write a little program for that. On the other hand, if it's more important to be visual, and easily passed around to random programs like Excel, R, etc. then CSV is the way to go. | |
| Sep 5, 2013 at 9:13 | comment | added | AlexE | Concerning horchler's comment: I'm sure well-used, standardised open binary formats such as HDF5 will be around for a long time. That's what I'd personally recommend. | |
| Sep 4, 2013 at 20:16 | vote | accept | SAAD | ||
| Sep 4, 2013 at 2:01 | comment | added | Brian Borchers | Be careful because some input/output libraries aren't careful enough to get bit for bit reproducibility as you output IEEE Double Precision numbers in ASCII and then read them back in. In my experience, using 17 or 18 decimal digits is sometimes necessary for safety. | |
| Sep 4, 2013 at 1:30 | comment | added | Brian Borchers | Another useful point is that although ASCII CSV encoding isn't very efficient, using a file compression utility (like zip, gzip, etc.) on your ascii file will typically bring the file size down to something similar to the size of a binary file. | |
| Sep 3, 2013 at 21:48 | comment | added | Godric Seer | That is true, and something I didn't consider, but since the question is asking about file size, I believe my answer still stands. | |
| Sep 3, 2013 at 21:46 | comment | added | horchler | Also important in the scientific arena is long-term archiving and reliable sharing, which is why, despite it's inefficiencies, ASCII CSV is so prevalent and recommended (PDF). | |
| Sep 3, 2013 at 16:34 | history | edited | Godric Seer | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
More Capitalization
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| Sep 3, 2013 at 15:29 | history | edited | Godric Seer | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
Capilization and removed the repetition of myself.
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| Sep 3, 2013 at 15:22 | history | answered | Godric Seer | CC BY-SA 3.0 |