ISO/IEC 14957:2010 specifies the notation to be used for stating the format, i.e. the character classes, used in the representation of data elements and the length of these representations. It also specifies additional notations relative to the representation of numerical figures. For example, this formatting technique might be used as part of the metadata for data elements.

The scope of ISO/IEC 14957:2010 is limited to graphic characters, such as digits, letters and special characters. The scope is limited to the basic datatypes of characters, character strings, integers, reals, and pointers.