Structure
The underlying file format is ASN.1, with tag/length/value blocks. Text values of attributes and elements are therefore stored with length prefixes rather than end delimiters, so there is no need to escape special characters. The equivalent of end tags ("terminators") are only needed at the end of a list of child-elements, and binary data need not be base64 encoded.
Fast Infoset is a higher level format built upon ASN.1 formalisms. Element and attribute names are stored within the octet stream, unlike traditional ASN.1. This means that it is possible to recover a conventional XML file from the binary stream without the need to reference any XML Schema. It does not attempt to convert an XML Schema directly into an ASN.1 definition. (ASN.1 "Tags" are just type names, e.g. String, Integer, or complex types.) ASN.1 together with ECN is used to define the file format.
An index table is built for most strings, which includes element and attribute names, and their values. This means that the text of repeated tags and values only appears once per document.
Read more about this topic: Fast Infoset
Famous quotes containing the word structure:
“A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.”
—Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
“There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“Vashtar: So it’s finished. A structure to house one man and the greatest treasure of all time.
Senta: And a structure that will last for all time.
Vashtar: Only history will tell that.
Senta: Sire, will he not be remembered?
Vashtar: Yes, he’ll be remembered. The pyramid’ll keep his memory alive. In that he built better than he knew.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)