In most applications, you need to store the user’s data in some way.
For example a project, or document.
I need to choose the best format for doing this.
The file will contain all settings of the app, so there will be text, numbers (small and large)
and raw binary data.
As far as I can see, there are two options. XML or a custom binary format.
I have created chunk-based binary formats in the past, but I feel they are hard to maintain, and hard to make backward compatible and future proof.
XML is tempting, but I am a bit worried that there is something I have not thought about here.
What do you guys use in your applications?