Optimizing transmission of XML

[Simon]

Is there utility/function that you can use to provide lookup values for the tags defined in a DTD?

The problem lots of good tag names that are used to describe small data items is causing some grief by bloating the data to be transmitted. As GSM is being used at 9.6K it hurts when the tags bloat the transmitted data

What I am interested in doing is using lookup table for the tags in a given DTD. The lookup table would be distributed with the DTD. Sending the documents described by the DTD with lookup values rather than the tag names. Use a lookup at the receiver to change the lookup value back to tag names.

I suspect this function is already available and described by a w3c standard...just can't see it for looking.

 

[Nick Kew]

Is there utility/function that you can use to provide lookup values for the tags defined in a DTD?

The problem lots of good tag names that are used to describe small data items is causing some grief by bloating the data to be transmitted. As GSM is being used at 9.6K it hurts when the tags bloat the transmitted data

Just use conventional compression - e.g. gzip - and it will tokenise out repetitive patterns (such as your tags) to the point where they have a negligible effect.

 

[Ed Day]

I suspect this function is already available and described by a w3c standard...just can't see it for looking.

The fact is, the W3C currently does not have any standards for anything like this. The Binary-XML working group is looking into ways of optimizing XML for binary transmission, but this is still in the initial stages.

Ed Day
Objective Systems, Inc.

 

[Simon]

The fact is, the W3C currently does not have any standards for anything like this. The Binary-XML working group is looking into ways of optimizing XML for binary transmission, but this is still in the initial stages.

Ed Day
Objective Systems, Inc.

Thanks Nick and Ed.
As it happens I'm already doing an in-store compress using zlib and sure it helps but there are lots of very different tag strings rather than lots of repetition. I'll keep and eye on the Binary-XML work group. I think I can implement something in the short term using hashing algorithms, but would have proffered to use a standard.
Simon