Serialize list to disk

[JD Smith <jdsmith@as.arizona.edu>]

I have a large (1MB) XML routine definition file which can be parsed
with xml-parse-file into a fairly large list.  I need to walk over
this list and transform it in place to a more useful internal format.
All of this takes 5-7secs on reasonably speedy machines (of which
about 4s occurs just in xml-parse-file).  This list must be read in
during each Emacs session in which my IDLWAVE programming mode is
used, but the list is constant, so it would seem natural to perform
the XML conversion just once, and then serialize the list to disk in
some compact binary (but hopefully portable) format for future
sessions.  Before it was reborn as XML, this data structure was
auto-generated in lisp and byte-compiled, and it loaded in a fraction
of a second.  That is no longer an option, so I'm stuck with the XML.

Is there a simple input/output mechanism in Emacs for static list
structures, that would allow me to write a compact representation on
disk, and quickly recover it in future sessions, without going through
the lengthy XML conversion process?  One wrinkle: much of this data
structure is repetitive, so to save on memory and speed, many of the
strings inside it are "sinterned" into custom hash variables.

The list is basically many, many cells similar to:

<ROUTINE name="WV_CWT" link="WV_CWT.html">
  <SYNTAX name="Result = WV_CWT(Array, Family, Order )" type="func" />
  <ARGUMENT name="Array" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009345" />
  <ARGUMENT name="Family" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009347" />
  <ARGUMENT name="Order" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009349" />
  <KEYWORD name="DOUBLE" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009356" />
  <KEYWORD name="DSCALE" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009358" />
  <KEYWORD name="NSCALE" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009484" />
  <KEYWORD name="PAD" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009489" />
  <KEYWORD name="SCALE" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009494" />
  <KEYWORD name="START_SCALE" link="WV_CWT.html#wp1009568" />
</ROUTINE>

which gets lispified as:

(ROUTINE ((name . "WV_CWT") (link . "WV_CWT.html")) (SYNTAX ((name
. "Result = WV_CWT(Array, Family, Order )") (type . "func")) "")
(ARGUMENT ((name . "Array") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009345")) "")
(ARGUMENT ((name . "Family") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009347")) "")
(ARGUMENT ((name . "Order") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009349")) "")
(KEYWORD ((name . "DOUBLE") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009356")) "")
(KEYWORD ((name . "DSCALE") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009358")) "")
(KEYWORD ((name . "NSCALE") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009484")) "")
(KEYWORD ((name . "PAD") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009489")) "")
(KEYWORD ((name . "SCALE") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009494")) "")
(KEYWORD ((name . "START_SCALE") (link . "WV_CWT.html#wp1009568"))
""))

Not sure why that final null string is added to the list (possibly the
space before "/>"?).

Thanks,

JD