Chris Lilley wrote:
It struck me as an entirely reasonable question, in particular since the
RFC that defines text/xml and application/xml refers to "MIME-like
protocols" which seems to imply that HTTP is not MIME (something I have
heard asserted in the past).
RFC 2068(Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1) says:
----------------------------------------------------
19.4 Differences Between HTTP Entities and MIME Entities
HTTP/1.1 uses many of the constructs defined for Internet Mail (RFC
822) and the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME ) to allow
entities to be transmitted in an open variety of representations and
with extensible mechanisms. However, MIME [7] discusses mail, and
HTTP has a few features that are different from those described in
MIME. These differences were carefully chosen to optimize
performance over binary connections, to allow greater freedom in the
use of new media types, to make date comparisons easier, and to
acknowledge the practice of some early HTTP servers and clients.
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