There has been much discussion about Binary XML formats recently, and some vendors have shown candidate technologies to fill this niche. This presentation introduces TokenStream, an optimized XML format that BEA has developed over a number of years for internal use. TokenStream offers considerable performance gains and space savings over XML 1.0 through the use of several techniques. It supports the full expressiveness of the XQuery 1.0/XPath 2.0 data model, including representation of the post-schema validation infoset (PSVI). It also retains many of the aspects of XML, such as simplicity and self-description, which led to its widespread adoption.

TokenStream is currently being used in a variety of scenarios; its high-throughput characteristics make it a win for Web services, while its inherent flexibility and comprehensive expressiveness allow it to serve as a basis for conversion of data between different XML formats and APIs (including DOM, SAX, XmlBeans, and others).

This session gives users and vendors the opportunity to learn more about the format and give feedback to BEA about their use cases and this exciting technology.