Does the World Need Binary XML?

sebFlyte writes "One of XML's founders says 'If I were world dictator, I'd put a kibosh on binary XML' in this interesting look at what can be done to make XML better, faster and stronger."

Then what

[chris_mahan]

Then what happens, do you base64 the binary xml and wrap it in an ascii xml document?

The solution is clear...

[LordOfYourPants]

Use the Z-modem protocol between Information Superhighway routers to compress the plaintext.

What would Homer Simpson do?

[Anonymous Coward]

What would Homer Simpson do if he found out about this news in Springfield? Be creative! Best answer gets 2+ mod points. Good Luck!!!!

Then we wrap it again, that's what!

[Tackhead]

> Then what happens, do you base64 the binary xml and wrap it in an ascii xml document?

Of course not! That's not XML!

<file=xmlbinary> <baseencoding=64> <byte bits=8> <bit1>0 </bit><bit2>1 </bit><bit3>1 </bit><bit4>0 </bit><bit5>1 </bit><bit6>0 </bit><bit7>0 </bit><bit8>1 </bit> </byte>
<boredcomment>(Umm, I'm gonna skip a bit if y'all don't mind)</boredcomment>
</baseencoding> </file>

Now it's XML!

Re:a kabosh?

[SnapShot]

Considering that for most purposes XML contains a lot of redundant formatting it seems like you could get nearly 10:1 compression simply by using (as has already been mentioned) zip or some other compression algorithm.

However, you wanted to go to a binary encoding you could try for something relatively straight forward like:

original:

<tag name="value"/>

patented XML encoding algorithm (hexideximal):

3c746167 206e616d 653d2276 616c7565 222f3e00

XML images !?

[morane]

Without it, large files such as images will take too long to download !

Yeah, right ! XML binary images... So needed...

<image>
<pixel x="0" y="1">
<r value="255" />
<g value="255" />
<b value="255" />
<pixel/>
...
<image/>

Re:Then we wrap it again, that's what!

[TheTomcat]

Since others feel the need to correct you, I'll join in:

<file type="xmlbinary">
<baseencoding base="64">
<byte bits="8">
<bit seq="0">0</bit>
<bit seq="1">1</bit>
<bit seq="2">1</bit>
<bit seq="3">0</bit>
<bit seq="4">1</bit>
<bit seq="5">0</bit>
<bit seq="6">0</bit>
<bit seq="7">1</bit>
</byte>
<!--
(Umm, I'm gonna skip a bit if y'all don't mind)
-->
</baseencoding>
</file>

<!-- </retentive> -->

S

Vast omissions!

[kahei]

Aside from the mistakes pointed out by others, you also forgot to reference the xmlbinary namespace, the xmlbyte namespace, and the xmlboredcommentinparentheses namespace, and to qualify all attributes accordingly. You also didn't include anything in or any magic words like CDATA, and you didn't define any entities. You also failed to supply a DTD and an XSL schema.

This is therefore still not _true_ XML. It simply doesn't have enough inefficiency. Please add crap to it :)

Re:Vast omissions!

[Tribbin]

Tsss, like your message is pure XML. It's not even proper XHTML!

"<BR>Aside from the mistakes pointed out by o"

Empty elements must either have an end tag or the start tag must end with />

Re:Then we wrap it again, that's what!

[lack1uster]

You didn't write the xml declaration header, YOU BASTARD!

Possibly I'm a cynic

[smittyoneeach]

...but I thought that the strategic goal of XML is to sell more hardware.
We should rejoice, buy more CPUs, and move the problem from XML, to languages with poor concurrency support.