# Blog independent file format?



## BlueCoder (Apr 20, 2013)

This is really off topic, if anyone can suggest a better forum please do so.

I'm wondering if there are any independent file formats for blogs and website engines. Web engine come and go so I'm thinking it would be better to commit to a simpler file format and convert.

My first thought would be just writing in XML directly and writing scripts to convert the content.

Any thoughts?


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## tingo (Apr 20, 2013)

What? Most blog / website engines I have seen use a database to hold the content (as opposed to the "look" which is mostly HTML and CSS anyway). The databases used vary, from MySQL, SQLite to flat file databases.


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## BlueCoder (Apr 20, 2013)

I guess I'm old school. I don't quite trust databases yet for my data. But what the databases are storing is essentially files anyway so it's more so the data format that is being stored in the database.

I don't want to commit to any particular system. I don't want to lock myself to any system.


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## drhowarddrfine (Apr 20, 2013)

BlueCoder said:
			
		

> My first thought would be just writing in XML directly and writing scripts to convert the content.


This is what I do for many things. You could even get away with using plain text but XML is far more flexible. The only problem is if your data gets huge. Then searching may become an issue. You could write your own search engine for that, though, or find some code somewhere.


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## fluca1978 (Apr 23, 2013)

BlueCoder said:
			
		

> I guess I'm old school. I don't quite trust databases yet for my data. But what the databases are storing is essentially files anyway so it's more so the data format that is being stored in the database.



Yeah, probably databases are a too new technology to place on a production system....
First of all please note that most database do not store files, but rather _streams_. Second, plain text is a really portable file format, so if I have to suggest, I'd like to suggest Emacs Org file format, that can be easily exported to a lot of other formats.


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