Preferred Options for Webservice to Android

Question

I need to get an Android app to interface with an XML webservice (it's really just a request which returns XML), but as the data is large and includes some things I don't need (like a huge description block), I was thinking of transforming it via a server into a format that would be good for Android, and also to be reduced considering it will be used in a low bandwidth area.

Does anyone have any suggestions for a good lightweight protocol? I'm especially thinking about libraries for Android that already exist for say REST or even delimited data.

Answer 1

JSON is very lightweight, so you could use that. I'm sure there are libraries already written to encode/decode it in Android.

Answer 2

JSON is the alternative to XML. If you're debating whether or not JSON is the preferred way to go, both Twitter and Facebook are going to be getting rid of XML support for their REST APIs and only providing JSON. I'd go that route if possible. XML won't go away, that's a given, but it may just not be used anymore in RESTful APIs.