Re: [apps-discuss] Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)

[Dave Cridland <[e-mail]>]

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Dave Crocker <[e-mail]> wrote:

>      How does/should the differences in data model affect the choices in
> encoding scheme?  I'm looking for the (relatively) short answer.
>

EXI makes certain assumptions about the data model in order to achieve the
most efficient encoding. EXI specifically can take into account not only
the generalized DOM, but also the schema of the XML encoded. Any encoding
scheme with domain knowledge embedded in it, as it were, can get more
efficient encoding (since it's effectively encoding that domain information
implicitly in its mere use rather than transmitting the model explicitly).
Of course, it doesn't mean that any domain-specific encoding will
automatically be better than a generalized one...

Another example, and one that you may be familiar with, is the way that
IMAP set syntax uses its knowledge of the data domain to make very compact
representations, which can be seen clearly in the difference between a
standard RFC 3501 SEARCH response and the RFC 4731 ESEARCH response, which
(can) carry the same information in different representations - the latter
using considerably fewer octets on the wire in all but degenerate cases.

In any case, this means that given a particular data model, selecting a
suitably apt encoding scheme will yield better results.

(This all said, you could pick an XML representation of the JSON model, and
then EXI encode that one, since the DOM is a superset of the JSON model - I
think. Not saying that's even remotely sensible...)

Dave.