Alan Horkan wrote:
It is far better not to XML at all than to break XML. (incidentally this is similar to what has been suggested for Cinepaint).
Just for the record ... I read the CinePaint file format, and it doesn't even resemble XML. My "PREAMBLE" is valid XML. If they implement what they have written, they don't even bother with things like closing tags or putting parameters in quotes.
The proper XML way to do what you describe would be to take the raw binary and base 64 encode it (ick) which is grossly inefficient for anything
Which is why I said preamble.
large. The more sensible way and still valid way is to use a container format and to link to the raw BLOB (binary large object) that would be another file in your container format.
Which is what, at this point, I would prefer.
OTOH, any
Using Zip as a container is not "On The Other Hand", it does not prevent any of the things you are suggesting.
Using a container at all is OTOH.
run 'head' on an OpenOffice document and you will see that the manifest is left uncompresses so that you can easily read it as text.
OpenOffice documents are zipped; you can't head them.
btw: META-INF/manifest.xml is at the end of my .sxi file.
Chris
