While XML has become a standard way to store and exchange data, its formatting calls for each element within a document to be tagged with labels written out as text. Therefore, claims AgileDelta, "its sheer size and verbosity clogs networks, overwhelms smaller devices, and can slow data transmission to a crawl."
According to AgileDelta, the compressed, binary format of XML data generated by Efficient XML can be hundreds of times smaller -- boosting transmission speed -- and also slashes network traffic. "Now cell phones, PDAs, media players, GPS receivers, and many other devices that are often constrained by battery power, processing power, or memory can participate in the XML ecosystem," the company says.
There have been other methods of converting XML into binary, potentially endangering the language's cross-platform compatibility. AgileDelta, however, says its implementation has been selected as the basis for the emerging global standard for binary XML by the
Efficient XML Interchange Working Group of the Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C).
The company plans to track the evolving standard and remain compatible with it. In addition, Efficient XML is claimed to work seamlessly with workstations that are not equipped with Efficient XML. A content-negotiation feature passes regular text XML through to workstations or devices that require it, without user intervention.
According to AgileDelta, the Efficient XML software development kit (SDK) includes support for popular XML APIs, including SAX (the Simple API for XML), DOM (Document Object Model), JAXP (Java API for XML Processing), and a pull-model streaming API patterned on StAX (Streaming API for XML). Efficient XML data can be parsed directly using these APIs without first requiring conversion to text XML, the company says.
A schema compiler is provided to compile a set of XML Schemas into a compact format that can be distributed with an application. This format is said to support schema extensions and deviations that allow successful encoding and decoding of data regardless of whether it exactly matches the schema.
Available for .NET Framework and .NET Compact Framework, the Efficient XML SDK also targets Java Standard Edition, Enterprise Edition, and Micro Edition. While pricing was not released, a 30-day evaluation edition is available from the company's website,
here.
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