About

CompactData was created to solve a problem we came up against whilst building NUM. NUM is a DNS-based protocol to store and serve structured data – providing a machine-readable online presence.

NUM uses DNS TXT records to store data. Existing data serialisation formats like JSON and YAML are not a good fit for DNS TXT since " and newline can cause difficulties with some DNS implementations. Additionally, it seemed to us that existing formats could be made more compact, which is a key consideration when storing data in DNS.

So, that’s how CompactData came about. To find out more about NUM and NUM Technology Ltd, the British company behind it take a look at the company website.

NUM Technology Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales under company number 10097965. Our registered office is: The Bradfield Centre, 184 Cambridge Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0GA