Hum... For nul, it's common to have an escaping sequence (yes, on binary data) and use it to encode the problematic characters. It's for the best if you encode enough of the data for one to be able to dump your file into a terminal and nothing getting compromised on the way (the terminal just failing to work is ok).
Personally, I disagree with how your format handles all those other issues too (except for the numbers), but well, if you think you are correct, go try it. If it works, it works, and my disagreement may easily be misguided. Anyway, I disagree because:
For the line breaks, the internet has a way of trying to "fix" them and completely breaking the line-information of the original document. It would be ok if the format wasn't blank-space dependent, but it is, so changing the lines breaks the data. Anyway, that is becoming a lesser problem with time, so maybe for a new format it's fine.
Entity references on formats that are not focused on them are surprising. That means a lot of software will break once they get one, and tradition says they will do that in a way that compromises computer security. I would either change the format so that references are almost always used or remove them. If an application needs references, it can always tag the entities with an id and put the references there by itself.
The same applies for arrays, in a lesser degree. They will be surprising, but they are also easier to handle. But they are also much less necessary, since lists can always replace them. I'm really not sure if they are a net negative or positive.
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Hum... For nul, it's common to have an escaping sequence (yes, on binary data) and use it to encode the problematic characters. It's for the best if you encode enough of the data for one to be able to dump your file into a terminal and nothing getting compromised on the way (the terminal just failing to work is ok).
Personally, I disagree with how your format handles all those other issues too (except for the numbers), but well, if you think you are correct, go try it. If it works, it works, and my disagreement may easily be misguided. Anyway, I disagree because:
For the line breaks, the internet has a way of trying to "fix" them and completely breaking the line-information of the original document. It would be ok if the format wasn't blank-space dependent, but it is, so changing the lines breaks the data. Anyway, that is becoming a lesser problem with time, so maybe for a new format it's fine.
Entity references on formats that are not focused on them are surprising. That means a lot of software will break once they get one, and tradition says they will do that in a way that compromises computer security. I would either change the format so that references are almost always used or remove them. If an application needs references, it can always tag the entities with an id and put the references there by itself.
The same applies for arrays, in a lesser degree. They will be surprising, but they are also easier to handle. But they are also much less necessary, since lists can always replace them. I'm really not sure if they are a net negative or positive.