ietf-xml-mime
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Re: [xml-dev] Registration status

2001-11-18 08:28:18

My thinking is that, if an application is XML aware, it can take take
advantage of namespace identifiers to obtain more detailed 'subtype' data
than a content-type header can provide. The rationale for expanding this
outside of the content-type header is that the header is too limited to
express much detail about the payload content -- and, as you quite rightly
note, the parameter extension mechanism is largely ignored.

Defining additional header fields for this purpose is NOT the answer.
There's already a very complete, extensible system for indicating media
features in MIME. See RFC 2912 for details.

Defining the necessary tags for namespace identifiers and so on would seem
to me to be reasonably straightforward.

The background questions, however, are these -- i) how can you reveal more
about the type of a MIME part, and ii) how useful would that information
really be.

i is a solved problem. ii remains to be seen. Thus far I've seen little use
made of this facility.

                                Ned