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You'll now find information like this in the ipld/ipld meta-repo, and published to the web at https://ipld.io/ .
All documentation, fixtures, specifications, and web content is now gathered into that repo. Please update your links, and direct new contributions there.
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A logical separation exists in any given IPLD codec between the format and the serializer/deserializer.
┌────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────┐
│ │ │ │
│ Serializer │ │ Deserializer │
│ │ │ │
└─────────┬──────────┘ └──────────^─────────┘
│ │
│ Sent to another peer │
│ │
┌─────────v──────────┐ ┌──────────┴─────────┐
│ │ │ │
│ Format ├─────────────> Format │
│ │ │ │
└────────────────────┘ └────────────────────┘
A format may represent object types and tree structures any way it wishes. This includes existing representations (JSON, BSON, CBOR, Protobuf, msgpack, etc) or even new custom serializations.
Therefor, a format is the standardized representation of IPLD Links and Paths. It describes how to translate between structured data and binary.
It is worth noting that serializers and deserializers differ by programming language while the format does not and MUST remain consistent across all codec implementations.