influxdata / influxdata/influxdb

Propose recommended file extension and content type for InfluxDB line protocol

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Rust
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Description

Proposal:
InfluxDB line protocol is specific file format which deserves having recommended file extension and content type

Current behavior:
I did not find any any answer to recommended content typ of Line protocol. Searching for file extension, some are using .csv, which seems confusing as InfluxDB is using CSV file as an alternative to line protocol.

InfluxDB web app shows on incon .line which is the only place where I found anything related to line protocol extension and not being CSV.

Desired behavior:
There shall be recommended line protocol file extension and content type.

I would recommend to consider:

  • file extension: .line, .lineproto, .ilp, .tsline, `.tslineproto
  • content type: text/lineprotocol, text/influxdblineprotocol, text/tslines, text/tslineproto

Alternatives considered:
Using .csv and content type text/csv does not seem to be the best alternative as it does not allow to distinguish between line protocol and csv formats which are both commonly used with InfluxDB data management.

Use case:
When importing time series data into InfluxDB, one typically converts existing data into line protocol format. It seems practical to have different file extension for CSV and line protocol.

When developing web services, having different content type for CSV and line protocol is very handy.

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Research direction

No file, test, or entry point is named. Review existing InfluxDB line-protocol and CSV documentation, then seek a maintainer decision on one canonical extension and content type; done means the recommendation is documented and clearly distinguishes line protocol from CSV.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Domain
databases
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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