Integrating wireless sensor networks in heterogeneous networks is a complex task. A reason is the absence of a standardized data exchange format that is supported in all participating sub networks. XML has evolved to the de facto standard data exchange format between heterogeneous networks and systems. However, XML usage within sensor networks has not been introduced because of the limited hardware resources. In this paper, we introduce XML template objects making XML usage applicable within sensor networks. This new XML data binding technique provides significant high compression results while still allowing dynamic XML processing and XML navigation. This is a step towards more complex but exchangeable data management in sensor networks and the extension of the service-oriented paradigm to sensor network application engineering. Categories and Subject Descriptors C.2.4 [Computer-Communication Networks]: Distributed Systems--Distributed applications, Distributed databases; H.2.4 [Data...