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[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] ASN.1 is an XML Schema Language (Fix those lists!) and Binary XML not ne
 A call for fairness
and equal rights...
Now that X.694 has
been approved, ASN.1 based systems can generate and consume just about any XML
object that can be defined using XML Schema. Thus, there seems to be no
reason why ASN.1 wouldn't be considered to be just as much an "XML Schema
Language" as any of the other more well-known languages like XML
Schema, Relax NG, Schematron, etc. Yet, of hundreds of sites and many books
that include lists and/or discussions of languages for describing XML
schemas, virtually none mention ASN.1... This doesn't make sense to me. It
seems to me that responsible writers would include references to ASN.1 as an XML
schema language. If ASN.1 was limited in its ability to describe XML objects, I
could understand its exclusion from discussion, however, such limitations
no longer exist.
ASN.1 based systems
are able to generate not only XML in the full complexity that can be described
by XML Schema, but they will also typically be capable of generating binary,
compressed formats like PER, BER, DER, etc. This combined with the ability
to encode XER, CXER and E-XER and the appearance of XML Schema to ASN.1
translators means that developers have the option of using either or
both text-based XML or compact and efficient binary encodings with *a
single programming interface!*. This flexibility hasn't been available to the
XML community before and essentially makes mute and unnecessary the whole
discussion of "Binary XML." (i.e. don't bother with binary XML. If you need
something like a "binary XML," then just use ASN.1 as your XML schema
language. By switching encoding modules at runtime, you can switch
back and forth between XML and something like PER on a connection-by-connection
basis with little or no code impact.) (I know this works. I do
it.)
Given that ASN.1 is
now capable of fully describing XML objects, it should be included in all lists
of "XML schema languages." And, we should put to bed the now mute discussion of
"Binary XML." XML should stay in the realm it started in -- a text-based
language for tagged data exchange. The problem of binary exchange is handled
well by others...
bob wyman
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