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Netstring
Netstrings are a djb invention. They are intended as a serialization format. Instead of inline control characters like \n or \0 to signal the end of a string, they use a run-length encoding given as the number of bytes, encoded in ASCII, at the beginning of the string.
hello -> 5:hello,
foo! -> 4:foo!,
こんにちは -> 15:こんにちは,
They can be used to encode e.g. lists by simply concatenating and reading them in one-by-one.
If you need a more complex encoding, you could start encoding e.g. tuples as netstrings-in-netstrings, or you could use netencode instead, which is what-if-json-but-netstrings, and takes the idea of netstrings to their logical conclusion.
Resources:
Spec: http://cr.yp.to/proto/netstrings.txt Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netstring