Deconstructing the STAR File Format.

Abstract

The STAR (Self-defining Text Archival and Retrieval) file format for electronic data transfer and archiving was introduced in 1991 (Hall, 1991). This format was designed to be extensible and flexible to handle all types of data in a machine independent manner. As a file format, STAR encompasses both a model (structure) for the information contained within the file as well as a syntax for defining the layout of the information within the file (serialization). This manuscript reports on an attempt to decompose the model from the layout and in doing so, both highlight differences between variants and versions of STAR as well as propose a simple alternate serialization of the STAR model in XML.