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text binary concatenation composability

Definition​

An encoding has composability when any set of self-framing concatenated primitives expressed in either the text domain or binary domain may be converted as a group to the other domain and back again without loss.

CESR is fully text binary concatenation composable.

Example in analogy​

Use Google Translate to translate a piece of text from English to Dutch. Subsequently, keep copy pasting the resulting “to:” text into the “from:” field. The message changes until it comes to a standstill where you can keep swapping the texts without them changing.

The conclusion is: Google Translate is not composable!

By contrast, CESR is composable. The analogy lies in the fact that we consider two languages. Suppose the English in the Google Translate example is readable, text based in CESR and Dutch is the binary form in CESR. Within these two CESR “languages”, text-based and binary, you can concatenate and swap freely as many times as you like — the data won’t change in between in their binary or text form no matter what content you express with them.
More explanation in source.