TXT records are actually variably-sized arrays of strings, making them very suitable for ASCII art. Unfortunately, `dig +short TXT` displays them as

    "string1" "string2" "string3"

instead of on separate lines. However, this is easily remedied with sed.

Using TXT for artwork also has the advantage that you don't risk an intermediate resolver re-ordering things.

Source: When this came up about a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7185326

Unfortunately our DNS service doesn't allow NAPTR records, so we had to go the TXT route. Here's a large wooden object:

dig +short txt log.netkine.com | sed $'s/\" \"/\\\n/g'

I get this. I can't make out what it's supposed to be.

                         P!**9N#
                        9=  #(a:?4
                       {w   Tj(d w?#
                     @(d   !nPx   A>4
                    P=W  @{d :   9=w\;
                   V:   9a# td P:d  tj
                  {w  9=W# Px @=#  F=+
                @(d  {d  #@= P=   P=@:
               P=#  WJ#sjP:WP= a?tx(a#
              P=@=d  gawV= 9=     wawa\;?
             {w :    #9:w       @!9_axw
           @{d 1d P9:wd    P9na\;=# WSgmN
          P=W @=9=w    9{  # #:w   W4Wmm
         Pn  #(vj   P{aW    #{d     W4Dm
        !a P9nW    !w#     P:d        mW
      #{d@:w##    {d9:/4  P=
     P=WP=@=w/#  Px{J4Pd {a
    P\;H1w Aw9j#  :m?(J:W{d
   Ynwwaa*:wW## {d  9=V:d
   \;44#WWRav*# tj 9:d@=
   A?WW#W#W#w==d@(d !a
    A?WWUWQ#mNs4:W td
     As*XUW#UWNsj@:d
      #wv!W4W WW?=#
         bw?9*9!="

a log...

it's big, it's heavy, it's wood

I really don't think you need to use NAPTR here. Using TXT works just fine, if you do a sort, if you prepend line numbers to the records. Alas, you still have to do a sort. It would be wonderful if there was a hack that involved not using the sort. Here's one I just added: dig txt art.ten7.com |sort

MX or with numbers then?

Numbers