SXML: Streaming XML

When broadband networks will be im- plemented in the near future, a huge amount of bandwidth will be available and hence, a number of new applications will emerge. Application de- velopers will need a framework that enables them to utilize the possibilities of these types of new net- works. In this article we present a document type that will allow the addition of (meta-)information to data streams and the synchronization of dierent data streams. It is called SXML (Streaming XML) and is based on the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). The SXML grammar is dened in a doc- ument type denition (SXML-DTD). The content of an SXML document can be processed real time or can be retrieved from disk. XML is being used in a complete new manner and in a totally dierent environment in order to easily describe the structure of the stream. Finally, a preliminary implementation has been developed and is being tested.