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Re: Naive question about binary encodings

• To: <grimlinda@e...>
• Subject: Re: Naive question about binary encodings
• From: ht@c... (Henry S. Thompson)
• Date: 26 Mar 2003 10:35:08 +0000
• Cc: <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <005a01c2f341$e51704b0$6501a8c0@D89FK411>
• References: <005a01c2f341$e51704b0$6501a8c0@D89FK411>
• Sender: ht@i...
• User-agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.4 (Portable Code)

"Linda Grimaldi" <grimlinda@e...> writes:

> I'm sure this is really naïve of me, but I have to admit that I don't
> understand why binary data cannot be sent within an xml document by
> providing appropriately namespace-controlled attributes that identify an
> element type as binary and specify its length.  For example:
> 
> <foo xml:mytype="binary" xml:binarylength="1776"> 
> or some such thing, followed by 1776 octets of whatever one likes.  It's
> kind of like MIME in some respects- as long as its type and length are
> identified, you can do whatever you like with it.

You can get close to that already, provided you are prepared to hex-
or base64-encode your binary data, which is necessary to guarantee
character decoding safety and XML well-formedness:

<foo xsi:type="xs:base64Binary>
sdcfo2JTiXE=
</foo>

with the appropriate namespace declarations.

ht
-- 
  Henry S. Thompson, HCRC Language Technology Group, University of Edinburgh
                      Half-time member of W3C Team
     2 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LW, SCOTLAND -- (44) 131 650-4440
	    Fax: (44) 131 650-4587, e-mail: ht@c...
		     URL: http://www.ltg.ed.ac.uk/~ht/
 [mail really from me _always_ has this .sig -- mail without it is forged spam]

• References:
  • Naive question about binary encodings
    • From: "Linda Grimaldi" <grimlinda@e...>

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