Ask HN: Resources for designing custom file formats
I am spending a lot of time solving problems utilizing files that are novel to me; but I am certain have been solved many times over by others. I'm having a hard time finding resources describing patterns and practices for custom file types (especially where data is changing often, the items being stored can vary in size, and I want to rewrite the smallest portion of the file possible).
Are there resources out there that you know of? Old resources would be great. The language doesn't matter. Any hints would help me save time.
The data is too volatile for something like JSON or XML to make sense, and the more I can optimize for performance the better. I will be storing more data than I want to keep in RAM at any one time, so just loading everything into RAM is not an option for this.
Thank you for any response :D