An Analysis of XML Compression Efficiency

TL;DR

This paper evaluates various XML compression methods using a new corpus and a combined efficiency metric, revealing that general-purpose compressors often outperform specialized ones depending on the context.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive XML test corpus and a combined efficiency metric, providing a systematic comparison of 14 compressors and insights into selection criteria.

Findings

XMill and WBXML are useful in specific cases

General-purpose compressors often outperform specialized ones

Key factors influence compressor selection

Abstract

XML simplifies data exchange among heterogeneous computers, but it is notoriously verbose and has spawned the development of many XML-specific compressors and binary formats. We present an XML test corpus and a combined efficiency metric integrating compression ratio and execution speed. We use this corpus and linear regression to assess 14 general-purpose and XML-specific compressors relative to the proposed metric. We also identify key factors when selecting a compressor. Our results show XMill or WBXML may be useful in some instances, but a general-purpose compressor is often the best choice.