While XML-text encoded messages are transparent and 'human readable', binary messages are often fairly obscure in comparison and difficult to decode without tools. While many of these and similar concerns are valid, the actual difference between XML-text encoded messages in an XML Web services environment and binary-encoded messages in a legacy remote procedure call (RPC) environment is often much less significant than the initial consideration might suggest. BinaryĬommonly expressed developer concerns include the perception that XML has significant overhead when compared to binary formats due to the repetitive nature of start tags and end tags, that the encoding of numerical values is considered to be significantly larger because they are expressed in text values, and that binary data cannot be expressed efficiently because it must be specially encoded for embedding into a text format.

To provide background information about the following information for WCF, this section highlights some general concerns and considerations for encodings, binary data, and streaming that generally apply to connected systems infrastructures. Because XML data is commonly encoded in the standard text format defined in the XML 1.0 specification, connected systems developers and architects are typically concerned about the wire footprint (or size) of messages sent across the network, and the text-based encoding of XML poses special challenges for the efficient transfer of binary data.

Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) is an XML-based communications infrastructure.

The message 1976 streaming