.NET Implementation of Efficient XML

Question

I am exporting large databases into xml format. This XML data needs to be compressed into the smallest possible format. I have heard alot about Efficient XML (EXI) and was wondering if there was a .NET implementation so that it can be called from within code...

Does anyone have an example of this as online resources seem to be a bit sparse...

Answer 1

Turns out Microsoft created their own binary XML format/encoding called MC-NBFX (catchy eh). This is part of the .NET framework and WCF as of .NET 3.0. For more info see:

• [MC-NBFX]: .NET Binary Format: XML Data Structure
• WCF Binary XML and dictionaries
• XmlDictionaryWriter Class
• XmlDictionaryReader Class

Another option is to run a Java implementation through IKVM to produce a .Net assembly. Open source Java implementations I could find are:

• OpenEXI
• EXI-ficient

Answer 2

Such implementation does exist. The company that created a predecessor of the Efficient XML Interchange format (AgileDelta) offers an Efficient XML library, which includes .Net version. Although they don't seem to publish the price.

The official EXI site doesn't list any other .Net implementation.

Answer 3

Nagasena has both .Net (written in C#) and Java implementations of the EXI specification.