A Novel Cost Model of XML Serialization

  • Authors:

  • G. Imre;M. Kaszó;T. Levendovszky;H. Charaf

  • Affiliations:

  • Department of Automation and Applied Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary;Department of Automation and Applied Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary;Institute for Software Integrated Systems, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN USA;Department of Automation and Applied Informatics, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Budapest, Hungary

  • Venue:
  • Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science (ENTCS)
  • Year:
  • 2010

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Abstract

Using XML as a data representation format is a common choice when integrating software systems on different platforms. The serialization of in-memory object instances of a class into corresponding XML documents heavily influences the performance of the XML-based communication, even if we send the XML over HTTP as in the case of SOAP-based XML Web Services, or with asynchronous messaging such as Java Message Service (JMS), or simply saving it into a file. Several studies have been published analyzing the performance impact of XML serialization on different platforms. No models or measurement methodologies have been proposed however, to establish a relationship between the serialization cost of primitive types (e.g. int, double, string), and the serialization cost of composite types. Such a model can be very useful when the type of the XML messages exchanged during the communication are known a priori, recorded in an interface definition, similarly to the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) in case of XML Web Services. This paper introduces a model that is validated with measurements on .NET and Java platform. The opposite direction, deserialization is covered as well. The main mathematical tool used is linear regression, but cases are also shown and explained where linearity is compromised.