Is there an emacs mode that handles Android XML?

Question

If I open a .apk file with Emacs, it shows me the archive just fine, but if I select the AndroidManifest.xml file, all I get is gobbledegook, because the XML is Android's binary XML encoding.

My google-fu has failed me in locating an emacs mode that understands Android Binary XML. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

If you can't find anything, the encoding is basically just 16bit characters- ignore every other character in a string as garbage and its readable. — Gabe Sechan, Jan 25 '13 at 21:31
According to the answers to [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/q/2097813/113848), the encoding is more complex than UTF-16. — legoscia, Jan 26 '13 at 12:50

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 27 '13 at 23:23

I don't believe any emacs XML mode would decode the binary XML format directly. However, there is a small perl script that can turn the binary XML into readable XML here: http://code.google.com/p/android-random/source/browse/trunk/axml2xml/axml2xml.pl

When loading a binary XML in emacs, I select the whole buffer, and run 'shell-command-on-region', specifying axml2xml.pl as the command. It's kludgy, but it works, for reading at least but not writing.

Is there an emacs mode that handles Android XML?

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