Re: Is this some obscure but correct terminology?

["Simon North" <Simon -dot- North -at- quintiq -dot- com>]

>>> John Posada <jposada01 -at- yahoo -dot- com> 04/08/2005 18:35  >>>

"Hydration/Dehydration of an XML structure from/to ASCII format"

I know the terms (I'd be embarassed if I didn't), but I haven't seem
them completely misused like this before. 
A tip to the developer - if he wants to use a jargon term he should use
it correctly. 

dehydration means converting an object instance through serialization
into an XML stream. 

hydration, or more correctly rehydration, means converting a serialized
XML stream (back) into an object instance. 

For a citation, see http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/show/3827/3/. 

Frankly, he'd have been better off simply calling it serialisation, if
that's what he means. As it stands, the sentence is 
actually meaningless - ASCII is a character representation not a
format. XML uses Unicode, of which ASCII is a subset, 
so an (English) XML structure (whatever that might be - I assume he
means the instance and not the structure as defined by 
the DTD or XML Schema) is most likely in ASCII anyway. Does he perhaps
means removing the markup to convert it to 
raw ASCII and back? If so, he's not only barking up the wrong with tree
with terms hydration and dehydration - he's stumbling 
around in the wrong wood. 

Hope this helps. 

Simon North
tech writer and XML author. 



 

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