Re: Binary Data in XML : Turning back the clock

Paul Prescod (papresco@technologist.com)
Wed, 30 Sep 1998 08:30:32 -0500

"Samuel R. Blackburn" wrote:
>
> A couple of weeks ago on this list, there was a thread that was
> lamenting the slow adoption of XML in the web community.
>
> It seems to me that one of the first problems programmers
> encounter is XML's inability to handle "binary" data. Once they
> hit that wall, they drop XML and move on to something else
> (usually a custom format).

First, binary data is not a wall. It's at most a gate. There are several
ways to handle it, none of them particularly onerous. My favourite is
"tar".

Second, recall that binary junk is what we are running away from.
Consider:

<ms:word xml:length="10000 bytes"></ms:word>

Yuck! I will rue the day I crash "vi" or "more" by looking at an XML
document.

I think that it is a much better practice to have the XML document contain
only human-readable, human-editable text and LINKS to necessarily
non-readable stuff. I suppose I would make an exception for streaming
processes that want to interleave tags and data: base64 handles this fine.

Paul Prescod - http://itrc.uwaterloo.ca/~papresco

Bart: Dad, do I really have to brush my teeth?
Homer: No, but at least wash your mouth out with soda.