ietf-822
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Ambiguity in 'body part'.

1992-02-28 04:09:45
I have just got the latest version  of the draft. I am most annoyed by
a  problem  of  terminology  :  the expression  'body  part'  has  two
meanings. It means both 'the part of a message that is not the header'
(as defined since  the dawn of ages  by RFC 822), and  'one section of
the  body  part  of  a  multipart message'  (this  is  new).  This  is
unnecessarily confusing.

Want an example ? See this :

            If a Content-Transfer-Encoding header field appears as  part
            of  a multipart message body part's headers, it applies only
            to the body part.  If  the  body  part  is  itself  of  type
                   |||||||||
Quiz : what is the exact meaning of this occurence of 'body part' (you
have three seconds to answer) ?

Two solutions seem possible :

1- replace all  occurences of 'body part' meaning 'one  section of the
body of  a multipart message' by  the expression 'part-encapsulation',
which is used in the BNF the denote that kind of object ;
2-   replace   both   the   same    occurences   in   the   text   and
'part-encapsulation' in the BNF by 'body-part'.
3-  (I  said  two  but...)  as  2-,  but  replace  by  something  else
(body-section ? Run a contest for the best name ?).

Anyway, the  expression used  in the  text should  match the  BNF. The
second solution seems weaker, since one must still be very careful not
to mix body part and body-part.

The example would then become (with part-encapsulation) :

            If a Content-Transfer-Encoding header field appears as  part
            of  the header of a part-encapsulation in a multipart,
            it applies only to the body part of that part-encapsulation.

Another  related problem  is that  the  expression 'the  body or  body
part', which is used at several places, is not correct (even with body
part  replaced  by part-encapsulation  or  by  body-part or  ..).  The
problem is  that the  current expression  implies that  the body  of a
message and a  section of the body  of a multipart message  are at the
same level, which is  not true. It is the body part  of a section that
is at the same level as the body part of a message. So that expression
should  be   replaced  by  'the  body   of  the  message  or   of  the
[body-part][part-encapsulation] '.

Is this nit-picking ? While I must often recognize that I am indulging
at such  an activity, I  don't think  it is the  case here. MIME  is a
rather  complex document,  and having  such a  major ambiguity  in the
terms used could lead to some bad results.
                                                          /AF

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