Re: 209 No Content vs. application/empty

James M Snell wrote:
> Mark Nottingham has suggested that rather than inventing a new Accept
> header and 209 No Content response type, it might be better to create a
> new media type that indicates the absense of content and use Accept to
> indicate the preference.  For instance:
> 
> In the request:
> 
>   Accept: application/empty, application/atom+xml;q=0.5
> 
> In the response:
> 
>   HTTP 200 OK
>   Content-Type: application/empty
>   ...
> 
> Seems to address the problem quite nicely.  I still think that there is
> benefit to the Prefer header but in this particular case, Marks
> suggestion seems to be a whole lot easier :-).

I like the idea in general but would prefer the media type to be called
"message/empty" instead. That "application/atom+xml" is of type
"application" doesn't mean that "*/empty" has be as well.

FWIW, there is already a media type called "message/partial";
"message/empty" thus fits into the "message" type quite nicely.

Regards,

Andreas Sewe