BigPatents India

An encoding method for enabling a decoder to decode a structured document having a structure defined in a first schema not accessible to the decoder and resulting from a change of a second schema accessible to the decoder, the first schema defining at least one information element (32) which is derived from a corresponding element defined in the second schema, the encoding method comprising the steps of: encoding the document using said first and second schemas into a binary stream comprising for each elements of the document a binary sequence encoding the element, and inserting in the binary sequence encoding the derived element a reference designating the first schema in which the structure of the derived element is defined, said reference (42) designating the first schema being defined in a schema reference list containing references to all schemas used for encoding the document, the schema reference list being made accessible to the decoder. (FIG. - 1)