3.6 Content-Disposition and the Main Message
It is permissible to use Content-Disposition on the main body
of an [RFC 822] message. Althouth the meanings of the two
current dispositions (`inline' and `attachment') are
respectively vacuous and undefined, it is anticipated that
future dispositions might be more amenable for use with main
messages (one might imagine a "print" disposition to
implement a print-by-mail service, for example).
A disposition of attachment with a main body makes sense to me.
Suppose the main body is a binary data file of some sort. It would
make sense not to automatically display it to the user.
Both inline and attachment make sense with the main body if a file name
is specified.
But in both of these cases you are not labelling the main body -- there isn't
one! You are just labelling the one and only object that the message happens to
contain, and that becomes the "main body" only by virtue of being the *only*
body.
Main body here refers to the (usually initial) part that contains purely
descriptive material. The current dispositions really don't make sense in this
context -- such material is inherently inline and not an attachment of any
sort.
Ned