newbie: XML-based message protocol over TCP?

[Mark]

Hi, I'm just starting to learn about XML. We have a system that sends
message (subject-observer model) between a sensor (subject) and multiple
operator monitoring terminals (observers). Currently they communicate using
a custom built protocol that works well but has several shortcomings. The
sensor listens for TCP connections from the operator consoles, and once a
TCP connection is established it remains until the operator terminal
disconnects.

I'm considering moving this custom protocol to an XML-based protocol. I'm
not sure though how XML messages would be encoded and sent over TCP. Most
of the XML protocols I've seen use HTTP rather than directly over TCP, which
seems to be unnecessary overhead for our application. I've also done some
reading about XML-RPC, but our system is not request-response based.

Does anyone have any suggestions for this? Are there examples of protocols
that send simple XML messages over a TCP stream? Are there common ways of
framing/delimiting individual messages?

I'm very new to XML, so any suggestions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[john farrow]

Have a look at http://www.jabber.org/, this uses XML protocols over TCP and
has documentation on the XML message formatting.


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