Read Data from Binary Files (Feather, HDF5, ORC, Parquet)

Introduction

Binary files are files whose contents are in binary format, which means that data is encoded as a series of sequential bytes with no inherent constraints (i.e., any sequence of bytes is possible). Unlike text files, binary files are non-text files in a format that can be read by computers but not humans.

Most digital data is stored in binary files because of some key advantages, such as faster read/write operations, smaller storage space, and preservation of original data structures. Serialization is the process of converting an object (e.g., data frame, data dictionary) into byte sequences to be stored in a binary file. When the file is subsequently accessed, the binary data is retrieved and deserialized into objects that are copies of the original information. ...