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I have a J2ME application that needs to communicate with my server, and download information for the application in XML. My application could run a lot faster if I had a better format of data, which would allow me to have more efficient parsing code.

Does anyone know an efficient substitute for XML? Maybe something specific for mobile phones?

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4 Answers 4


The conclusion being WBXML which I would agree with.

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You could try Google's Protocol Buffers. Very compact binary encoding and highly optimised parser/encoder. In short, you write some descriptions about your structures, and it compiles to a specialized OOP library in Java, C++ or Python that you include in your client and server.

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will that work in J2ME (CLDC & MIDP)? –  hsmit Jan 28 '10 at 9:58
no idea; but you can try.... after all, the PB compiler generates a library; i'd be surprised if it had any 'big Java' requirements. –  Javier Jan 28 '10 at 15:52

There's always JSON, but I don't know if it is what you need.


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I haven't heard about many protocols for this kind of stuff (efficient and small) but you could try Hessian which is a lot better than xml in terms of efficiency.


but be weary and check out the following which might help




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