Re: [xml] using large binary chunks / binary XML?

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From: Daniel Veillard (Daniel.Veillard@imag.fr)
Date: Thu Jan 04 2001 - 05:31:25 EST

On Thu, Jan 04, 2001 at 09:59:47AM +0100, Peter Jacobi wrote:
>
> Hi Daniel, All,
>
> > I think this is a packaging format problem. I have already suggested a
> > format (in other forums), basically it's the following:
> >
> > - a ZIP file encapsulating a set of files
> > - the first file is in an XML format and provides metadata
> > (filename, URL, mime type, ...) for the content of the archive
> > - the other elements in the archive can be either XML or binary
>
> Are you suggesting 'the' ZIP format or do you mean any generic packed
> archive format? If the former is the case, what's the rationale for
> choosing ZIP over TAR/GZIP?

  because one can seek in a ZIP archive
  because it's basically Jar (Java format) but with an XML metadata header
  because tar standard (POSIX IIRC) and GNU implementation are subtly different

> And to add another suggestion: The multiple 'forks' (XML, Binary) should
> be virtualized in some kind, to a) exploit file systems who can provide
> multiple forks per file natively (NTFS) b) use files withing a directory,
> c) use MIME multipart, beside the d) the ZIP (or tar/gzip) implementation.

  I beg to differ, the problem with such an approach is that you loose
the portability of an archive, factor which is driving me to add it. I'm
not interested in this N ways to do packaging, I want one and have it
work everywhere. Packing multiple entities in a single file using ZIP
is a good interchange format, that's why I want to add it.
Standardizing the metadata description is important too.

Daniel 

-- 
Daniel Veillard      | Red Hat Network http://redhat.com/products/network/
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