On Fri, 11 Jul 2003, Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
> But the fact is that you're going to end up having to Base64
> encode all the image data - which will blow the physical file size
> WAY out of proportion. And if don't do that (ie. attempt to leave in
> binary data), then you are violating the spirit of XML's design goals.
Honestly I can't think of a way to put image data into a file format at
all that wouldn't violate SGML's design goals. XML may differ in some
aspects from SGML, but the fact is that SGML was designed to be a markup
language for documents written in human languages, and the design
decisions that created that also make storing binary in *ML cumbersome.
GIMP needs a file format that is extensible, and a native representation
for tree structures is essential, but there are plenty of ways to do this
other than the XML method. Storing images, which ar almost all binary
data, in true XML is a lesson in inefficiency.
Oh wait, I take it back. I can think of a image format that retains the
spirit of XML:
<gimpimage>
<comment>Created by the GIMP!</commment>
<layers colorspace="rgb" bitdepth="8">
<layer width="6" height="6">
<row>
<pixel r="127" g="127" b="127" />
<pixel r="127" g="127" b="127" />
<pixel r="127" g="127" b="127" />
<pixel r="127" g="127" b="127" />
<pixel r="127" g="127" b="127" />
<pixel r="127" g="127" b="127" />
</row>
<row>
.
.
.
</row>
</layer>
</layers>
</gimpimage>
Determining whether this is a good format is left as an exercise to the
reader.
Rockwalrus
