MS> That answers my question of overhead with regards to XML headers.
  MS> If there is a single header for defining the type of "stream" then the
  MS> actual serialization can be dense enough.

  MS> I just needed clarification. :)

well, that was my take on what dan said. i could have misinterpreted him.

  MS> I think a grammar should be developed for this, since it should likely
  MS> be implemented as a recursive parser.

there are many ways to encode serialized stuff and not all are conducive
to grammars IMO. some may be simple type/length/binary value things
which are best expanded in nice fast loops. other formats could just go
into pure ugly XML which can be parsed back into data. also dan
mentioned the half-frozen human readable types (which both the binary
AND XML formats need!) which don't (or may not) get parsed again.

uri

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