ietf-xml-mime
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Re: Revised Internet-Draft: Media Feature - xmlns

2002-02-20 20:09:04


I concur with Simon here.  As has been noted before, the root namespace is
often not the one you want to 'dispatch' based on.

I think it makes more sense to think of the namespace 'set' specified in a
MIME header as representing a 'processing signature hint' for the
data. But note that this hint is not unique for a document -- it can
vary depending on how you want the data to be processed. 

Looked at this way, the root namespace is no longer that important -- it's
just one potential namespace part of the overall signature. 

Hope this makes sense --

Ian

On 19 Feb 2002, Simon St.Laurent wrote:


On Tue, 2002-02-19 at 19:20, Mark Nottingham wrote:
Might I suggest that any revision of RFC3023 include a new parameter
for application/xml and text/xml (say, 'rootNS') that contains the
root element's namespace URI, to allow HTTP content negotiation with
current implementations? Yes, this won't address cases where there is
a need to negotiate on more than one namespace in the document, but
it will certainly help with the simple cases, where dispatch is based
upon the root element's namespace (which seems to be the direction
things are going in).

You're welcome to register a rootNS content feature.  

I have to admit that I don't understand or sympathize with the
fascination with root element namespaces, and don't believe that RFC
3023 needs to add any XML-specific parameters, but a content feature
should take care of what you're looking for.
 
-- 
Simon St.Laurent
Ring around the content, a pocket full of brackets
Errors, errors, all fall down!
http://simonstl.com