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using EBML instead of XML ?

17 messages · eric, Carl-Adam Brengesjö, Jernej SimonÄ�iÄ�, Yves BLUSSEAU, Jacek Sieka, Todd Pederzani, Jan Vidar Krey, Fredrik Tolf
22 January 2004, 07:17eric <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers <[email protected]>, "Yves BLUSSEAU" <[email protected]>
and what's abour using EBML (http://ebml.sourceforge.net/ or
http://matroska.org/) instead of XML for file listing ?

I don't know why but I think someone will tell us it is not natively available under windoz.

Eric

22 January 2004, 07:35Carl-Adam Brengesjö <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers

eric wrote:
and what's abour using EBML (http://ebml.sourceforge.net/ or
http://matroska.org/) instead of XML for file listing ?


I don't know why but I think someone will tell us it is not natively available under windoz.

Why _not_ use XML?

22 January 2004, 08:17Jernej SimonÄ�iÄ� <[email protected]>
to "eric on [dcdev]" <[email protected]>
On Thursday, January 22, 2004, 19:17:57, eric wrote:

I don't know why but I think someone will tell us it is not natively available
under windoz.

*Points at VirtualDubMod, Media Player Classic and Matro?ka DirectShow
splitter*

(As for regexp library for Windows, there are 2 of them on
<http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages.html>)

-- 
begin  .sig
< Jernej Simoncic >< http://deepthought.ena.si/ >

If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you.
      -- Von Helsing's Theorem
end

22 January 2004, 08:19Yves BLUSSEAU <[email protected]>
Why _not_ use XML?

Much smaller because it's a binary format.

Yves
22 January 2004, 09:58Jacek Sieka <[email protected]>
to "'Direct Connect developers'" <[email protected]>
> Why _not_ use XML?

Much smaller because it's a binary format.
But still very compressible as most data is text (filenames)...and since
we'll be compressing it anyway, the size really doesn't matter as XML
compresses away easily...

/J

22 January 2004, 11:39Yves BLUSSEAU <[email protected]>
Hi everybody,

and what's abour using EBML (http://ebml.sourceforge.net/ or
http://matroska.org/) instead of XML for file listing ?

Yves XXXXXXXX

23 January 2004, 02:05Jacek Sieka <[email protected]>
to "'Direct Connect developers'" <[email protected]>
If we really need small filelist, we can use EBML + Compression.
Yes, but the two compressed file lists will probably end up at similar size
since the redunancy in xml vs ebml easily compresses away...

Ebml is better to use for already compressed binary data with a few text
elements here and there, while we're dealing with text mainly...
/J

23 January 2004, 02:55eric <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers <[email protected]>, "Yves BLUSSEAU" <[email protected]>
On Thursday 22 January 2004 20:19, Yves BLUSSEAU wrote:
> Why _not_ use XML?

Much smaller because it's a binary format.

This looks a lot like a previous discussion where we have to choose between a binary or a text protocol :)

Eric

23 January 2004, 03:19Todd Pederzani <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers

eric wrote:

This looks a lot like a previous discussion where we have to choose between a binary or a text protocol :)


Very true. :)

Also brought up twice since then is essentially this question/point:

"instead of arguing about semantics, what do you want it to _do_?"

Sometimes it's fun to get bogged down in small details, but it is ultimately counter-productive as we seem to have only a certain amount of inertia/motivation to talk about a replacement protocol.  No sense squandering it. ;)

- Todd
23 January 2004, 03:21Jan Vidar Krey <[email protected]>
to eric <[email protected]>, Direct Connect developers <[email protected]>
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> XML has the extra advantage of being a standard with several
> implementations on different platforms and in different languages which
> has to count for something. There are plenty BZ2 and GZIP implementations
> available aswell.

You are fully right, EBML is probably to recent to have a port everywhere.

Plus, XML is (was?) a buzz-word. Very nice to put on your resume :)

- -janvidar-

Dj Offset / QuickDC
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23 January 2004, 03:34eric <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers <[email protected]>, Jan Vidar Krey <[email protected]>

Yes, but both BZ2 and GZIP are very good at working with repetitive
strings. I haven't looked much at the EBML, but my impression is that the
XML file will be much more compressable than the EBML, and if the XML is
larger than the EBML uncompressed is completely irrelevant.

We have here a lot of speculations (on both sides). Perhaps we should make some real tests and take our own sharelist (we should be enough to have a reasonable results), converts it into XML and EBML and then compress it with BZIP2 and GZIP. Then, we will have at least a little base of discussion.

XML has the extra advantage of being a standard with several
implementations on different platforms and in different languages which has
to count for something. There are plenty BZ2 and GZIP implementations
available aswell.

You are fully right, EBML is probably to recent to have a port everywhere.

Eric

23 January 2004, 03:47Fredrik Tolf <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers
Jan Vidar Krey writes:
> > > XML has the extra advantage of being a standard with several
> > > implementations on different platforms and in different languages which
> > > has to count for something. There are plenty BZ2 and GZIP implementations
> > > available aswell.
> >
> > You are fully right, EBML is probably to recent to have a port everywhere.
> > Plus, XML is (was?) a buzz-word. Very nice to put on your resume :)

That's really what I don't like with XML... I think that it's clearly
overestimated. No, really, it's true - XML doesn't solve all the
problems in the world, believe it or not. I often want to avoid XML,
since all the DOM stuff and everything really is unnecessary, and
introduces more parsing overhead than is really desirable.

However, in this file-list context, it does indeed seem to be the best
choice.

Fredrik Tolf

23 January 2004, 10:28Yves BLUSSEAU <[email protected]>
Yes, but with EBML we don't need to compress the data.
We can exchange the datas directly.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jacek Sieka j_s-at-telia.com |Direct Connect dev/1.0-Allow|"
<[email protected]>
To: "'Direct Connect developers'" <XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX>
Sent: Thursday, January 22, 2004 9:58 PM
Subject: RE: [dcdev] using EBML instead of XML ?

> > Why _not_ use XML?
>
> Much smaller because it's a binary format.
But still very compressible as most data is text (filenames)...and since
we'll be compressing it anyway, the size really doesn't matter as XML
compresses away easily...

/J

23 January 2004, 10:31Jan Vidar Krey <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers
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On Friday 23 January 2004 10:28, Yves BLUSSEAU wrote:
Yes, but with EBML we don't need to compress the data.
We can exchange the datas directly.

Which file is the smallest, the EBML or the BZ2 compressed XML-file?

- -- - -janvidar-

Dj Offset / QuickDC
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23 January 2004, 11:36Jan Vidar Krey <[email protected]>
to Direct Connect developers
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Yes, but both BZ2 and GZIP are very good at working with repetitive strings. I haven't looked much at the EBML, but my impression is that the XML file will be much more compressable than the EBML, and if the XML is larger than the EBML uncompressed is completely irrelevant.
XML has the extra advantage of being a standard with several implementations on different platforms and in different languages which has to count for something. There are plenty BZ2 and GZIP implementations available aswell.

Cheers

- -janvidar-

On Friday 23 January 2004 11:46, Jernej Simon�i� wrote:
On Friday, January 23, 2004, 10:28:47, Yves BLUSSEAU wrote:
> Yes, but with EBML we don't need to compress the data.
> We can exchange the datas directly.

Let's see: my filelist is 369kB uncompressed. If we start using (EB|X)ML, I
imagine it'll only become bigger, due to added data (actually, if it'd only
carry the same information as is in the list now [filenames and sizes],
EBML might be a bit smaller). No matter which compression you use, the
filelist will become smaller, and that is the whole point - have as small
filelists as possible, which carry as much data as possible. It's always
faster to upload 85kB than 369kB. (This reminds me, did anybody look into
7Z for compression :)

--
begin  .sig
< Jernej Simoncic >< http://deepthought.ena.si/ >

It ain't necessarily so.
       -- Gershwin's Law
end

- -- - -janvidar-

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23 January 2004, 11:46Jernej SimonÄ�iÄ� <[email protected]>
to "Yves BLUSSEAU on [dcdev]" <[email protected]>
On Friday, January 23, 2004, 10:28:47, Yves BLUSSEAU wrote:

Yes, but with EBML we don't need to compress the data.
We can exchange the datas directly.

Let's see: my filelist is 369kB uncompressed. If we start using (EB|X)ML, I
imagine it'll only become bigger, due to added data (actually, if it'd only
carry the same information as is in the list now [filenames and sizes], EBML
might be a bit smaller). No matter which compression you use, the filelist
will become smaller, and that is the whole point - have as small filelists
as possible, which carry as much data as possible. It's always faster to
upload 85kB than 369kB. (This reminds me, did anybody look into 7Z for
compression :)

-- 
begin  .sig
< Jernej Simoncic >< http://deepthought.ena.si/ >

It ain't necessarily so.
      -- Gershwin's Law
end

23 January 2004, 11:54Yves BLUSSEAU <[email protected]>
If we really need small filelist, we can use EBML + Compression.

Let's see: my filelist is 369kB uncompressed. If we start using (EB|X)ML,
I
imagine it'll only become bigger, due to added data (actually, if it'd
only
carry the same information as is in the list now [filenames and sizes],
EBML
might be a bit smaller). No matter which compression you use, the filelist
will become smaller, and that is the whole point - have as small filelists
as possible, which carry as much data as possible. It's always faster to
upload 85kB than 369kB. (This reminds me, did anybody look into 7Z for
compression :)