Patent ID: 7373591

Claim:
An encoding method for encoding a description element of an instance of a markup language schema defining a hierarchical structure of description elements, said hierarchical structure comprising hierarchical levels, parent description elements and child description elements, said description elements to be encoded comprising a content, wherein the method includes the steps of: providing a table derived from said schema, said table containing identification information for solely identifying each description element in a hierarchical level, and structural information for retrieving any child description element from its parent description element, scanning a hierarchical memory representation of said instance from parent description elements to child description elements until reaching the description element to be encoded, and retrieving the identification information of each scanned description element from said table, encoding said description element to be encoded as a binary fragment comprising said content, including a data block size, and a sequence of the retrieved identification information, wherein each byte within said sequence of the retrieved identification information includes at least two control bits; and transmitting said encoded description element.