[XML-DEV Mailing List Archive Home] [By Thread] [By Date] [Recent Entries] [Reply To This Message] RE: MIME types and file extensions for XML
> From: owner-xml-dev@i... > The only question I have is that they're > registering text/xml and application/xml. > Are we expecting all XML-encoded > files to transfer under these two MIME types, > or will more specific MIME types emerge > for particular types of XML documents? Anyone can make their own MIME type. The media types have an extension mechanism. So if I made "Rick's Markup Language" I could use the media type "application/x-rml". The "x-" prefix allows user extension. Of course, if Robin Cover made up "Robin's Markup Language" with the same type name, there is a potential problem. This is the old "public identifier" problem. And the old solution is appropriate: the name should include some owner name which will promote uniqueness. If possible, this owner name should be from some registration authority. In my case, I am pretty sure there is no one else in the world with my name. So I can just say something like "application/x-rick-jelliffe-ml" and there will be no problems. Robin Cover might say "appplication/x-sil-org-sgml-ml" and use some version of his internet domain name, since his name is less rare and there is slightly more chance of collission (though still less!). You can also apply to the IETF and get your own registration tree. So Microsoft, for example, could apply for "ms": then they could have "appplication/ms-rml". (But no-one has done this yet, so it perhaps involves too much effort to be a viable alternative.) (For more on this subject, see chapter 13 "Formal Public Identifiers" and chapter 14 "Data Content Notations" in my book. The RFCs for MIME media-type registrations are useful too.) Rick Jelliffe ========================================================== The XML & SGML Cookbook, by Rick Jelliffe Charles F. Goldfarb Series on Open Information Management 656 pages + CD-ROM, Prentice Hall 1998, ISBN 0-13-614223-0 http://www.sil.org/sgml/jelliffeXMLAnn.html http://www.phptr.com/ > Book Search > "Jelliffe" http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0136142230/002-4102466-3352420 xml-dev: A list for W3C XML Developers. To post, mailto:xml-dev@i... Archived as: http://www.lists.ic.ac.uk/hypermail/xml-dev/ To (un)subscribe, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; (un)subscribe xml-dev To subscribe to the digests, mailto:majordomo@i... the following message; subscribe xml-dev-digest List coordinator, Henry Rzepa (mailto:rzepa@i...)
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