ISO/IEC 14957:2010规定了用于说明数据元素表示中使用的格式（即字符类）以及这些表示的长度的符号。它还指定了与数字表示相关的附加符号。例如，这种格式化技术可以用作数据元素元数据的一部分。 ISO/IEC 14957:2010的范围仅限于图形字符，如数字、字母和特殊字符。范围仅限于字符、字符串、整数、实数和指针的基本数据类型。

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.