ietf-xml-mime
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Re: Starting the ietf-xml-mime mailing list

1999-04-06 23:31:16
Martin J. Duerst wrote:
I wrote:
Note: None of the above proposals handle non-monolithic XML documents very 
well, 
since different islands of non-monolithic XML documents belong to different 
namespaces and thus different schemata.  For example, the MIME parser 
cannot 
invoke vCard applications if the vCard is embeded by the namespace 
mechanism.

I think this will become more and more important, and we should try to find
a solution that doesn't exclude it. On first sight, it doesn't look so 
difficult:

Define one parameter, maybe named "namespaces", that lists, comma-separated,
all the namespaces used in the document. The DOCTYPE, if present, counts as
one. The DOCTYPE, or the namespace of the root element, is listed first.
If other description mechanisms (schemas,...) are defined, the URIs used
for them can also be used.

I am wondering if it is really a good idea to put every information in 
the MIME header.

How can a MIME processor or vCard application extract a vCard fragment 
from the XML document?  To do so, somebody has to parse the document.  But 
if somebody has to parse it anyway, it should be really easy to find 
which namespace appears in the document.  Thus, there is not much point 
in having namespace information in the MIME header.

Cheers,

Makoto
 
Fuji Xerox Information Systems
 
Tel: +81-44-812-7230   Fax: +81-44-812-7231
E-mail: murata(_at_)apsdc(_dot_)ksp(_dot_)fujixerox(_dot_)co(_dot_)jp