Re: XML.COM: How I Learned to Love daBomb

[John Cowan <jcowan@reutershealth.com>]

Michael Brennan wrote:
> I'll confess to being unfamiliar with ONC-RPC, but if it is only available
> on UNIX, that doesn't quite cut it.

It is the underlying serialization (XDR) and remote procedure protocol
(ONC RPC) for the widespread NFS remote file system protocol, and is
documented in RFCs 1014 (XDR) and 1057 (RPC).

> Also, if it is unable to handle
> serializing complex graphs of data in a manner that is portable across
> platforms, that also doesn't quite cut it.

COmplex graphs, no.  XDR serializes the usual primitive types, strings,
fixed- and variable-sized octet sequences, fixed- and variable-length
homogeneous arrays, structures, and discriminated unions.  So it can
pretty much encode trees, but not arbitrary dags.
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