Binary HepRep

Uses WBxml, see http://www.w3.org/TR/wbxml/, which is

  • a wep standard to send XML to wireless devices
  • each tag/attribute has a binary code
  • structure is the same as XML
  • numbers can be written as doubles and integers

Advantages

  • smaller than XML
  • compact
  • can be still compressed by zlib compression
  • faster to parse
  • easy lookup of tags and attributes
  • no conversion of ASCII numbers to doubles and integers

Disadvantages

  • not human readable/editable
  • HepRep interfaces need to be stable

Implementations

  • freehep-jheprep contains both a Binary HepRep reader and writer
  • freehep-cheprep contains only a Binary HepRep writer
  • Added as supported format in Geant 4.7.1
  • Supported as reader in WIRED 4.0