a human-friendly, cross language, Unicode based data serialization language designed around the common native data types of agile programming languages. It is broadly useful for programming needs ranging from configuration files to Internet messaging to object persistence to data auditing.
Let's divide content into two broad groups: Content without well-defined form (Formless Content), and Content with well-defined form (Definite Content). Formless Content can be reflowed into different formats and not lose any intrinsic meaning. It's content divorced from layout. Most novels and works of non-fiction are Formless. Content with form — Definite Content — is almost totally the opposite of Formless Content. Most texts composed with images, charts, graphs or poetry fall under this umbrella. It may be reflowable, but depending on how it’s reflowed, inherent meaning and quality of the text may shift.
With SIARD (Software Independent Archiving of Relational Databases), the Swiss Federal Archives (SFA) provides a sustainable solution for the long-term preservation of relational databases. This includes an open format for archiving of relational databases as well as a software package - "SIARD Suite" - for converting relational databases into the SIARD format. SIARD Suite is based on international standards such as XML, SQL:1999 and UNICODE. At present the application supports the following databases: Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server und Microsoft Access. The Swiss Federal Archives distributes the SIARD Suite free of charge, according to the license agreement. database preservation. preservation of databases.