Our company makes many embedded devices that communicate with PC’s via applications that I write in C#.net. I have been considering different ways of improving the data transfer so that the PC application can be more easily synchronized with the devices current state (which in some cases is continually changing).
I have been thinking about an approach where the device formats it’s description and state messages into an xml formatted message before sending them across either the serial port, USB, Ethernet Socket, etc. I was thinking that it may make the process of getting all of this data into my C# classes more simple.
The alternative is an approach where the host application sends a command like GETSTATUS and the device responds with an array of bytes, each representing a different property, sensor reading, etc.
I don’t have a great deal of experience with xml but from what I have seen can be done with LINQ to XML it seems like it might be a good idea. What do you guys think? Is this something that is done commonly? Is it a horrible idea?!?
First, which ever way you go, make sure the returned data has a version number embedded so that you can revise the data structure.
Is both an option? Seriously, there are always situations where sending data in a more readable form are preferable, and others where a more dense representation is best (these are fewer than most people think, but I don’t want to start a religious war about it). People will passionately argue for both, because they are optimizing for different things. Providing both options would satisfy both camps.
A nice, clear XML status could definitely lower the bar for people who are starting to work with your devices. You could also build a C# object that can be deserialized from the binary data that is returned.