FFS is a middleware library for data communication, including representation, processing and marshaling that preserves the performance of traditional approaches while relaxing the requirement of a priori knowledge and providing complex run-time flexibility. FFS provides for highly efficient binary data communication, XML-like examination of unknown data, and both third party and in situ data processing via dynamic code generation. All of these capabilities are fully dynamic at run-time, without requiring a priori agreements or knowledge of the exact form of the data being communicated or analyzed.