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Re: Binary XML == "spawn of the devil" ?

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: Re: Binary XML == "spawn of the devil" ?
• From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
• Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2003 11:06:32 -0400
• In-reply-to: <3F268224.7090801@e...>

robin.berjon@e... (Robin Berjon) writes:
>In fact, if HTTP 1.1 content codings took parametres, we'd have the
>answer already. Damn :)

I'm not entirely sure what you're looking for - and Len's reply makes me
even less certain - but Content-Type header fields definitely take
parameters:

http://ietf.org/rfc/rfc2045.txt , Section 5

-----------------------
   The Content-Type header field specifies the nature of the data in the
   body of an entity by giving media type and subtype identifiers, and
   by providing auxiliary information that may be required for certain
   media types.  After the media type and subtype names, the remainder
   of the header field is simply a set of parameters, specified in an
   attribute=value notation.  The ordering of parameters is not
   significant.
   
   In general, the top-level media type is used to declare the general
   type of data, while the subtype specifies a specific format for that
   type of data.  Thus, a media type of "image/xyz" is enough to tell a
   user agent that the data is an image, even if the user agent has no
   knowledge of the specific image format "xyz".  Such information can
   be used, for example, to decide whether or not to show a user the raw
   data from an unrecognized subtype -- such an action might be
   reasonable for unrecognized subtypes of text, but not for
   unrecognized subtypes of image or audio.  For this reason, registered
   subtypes of text, image, audio, and video should not contain embedded
   information that is really of a different type.  Such compound
   formats should be represented using the "multipart" or "application"
   types.

   Parameters are modifiers of the media subtype, and as such do not
   fundamentally affect the nature of the content.  The set of
   meaningful parameters depends on the media type and subtype.  Most
   parameters are associated with a single specific subtype.  However, a
   given top-level media type may define parameters which are applicable
   to any subtype of that type.  Parameters may be required by their
   defining content type or subtype or they may be optional. MIME
   implementations must ignore any parameters whose names they do not
   recognize.

   For example, the "charset" parameter is applicable to any subtype of
   "text", while the "boundary" parameter is required for any subtype of
   the "multipart" media type.
-----------------------------

Maybe you need something stronger, which the next paragraph pushes
elsewhere:
-----------------------------
   There are NO globally-meaningful parameters that apply to all media
   types.  Truly global mechanisms are best addressed, in the MIME
   model, by the definition of additional Content-* header fields.
------------------------------


   
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com -- http://monasticxml.org

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