I deal with binary data all the time and I just use fwrite in C and pack in Perl, and a text readme in vim explaining the (simple) format. I don't use Matlab bu

I deal with binary data all the time and I just use fwrite in C and pack in Perl, and a text readme in vim explaining the (simple) format. I don't use Matlab but often need exchange the data with Matlab user; I simply search help page and send the one or two lines of matlab code to them along with the data. I'll do the same thing if my fellow colleague switch to numpy tomorrow (it is surprising that they would read HDF5 tutorial but won't read my readme). Research data are almost always specific. The idea of a general format serving all research just sounds silly to me.