Re: Meta Data Handling

Larry Masinter wrote:
> 
> Could you elaborate a bit on how you imagine using
> application/directory as a way of doing "light" metadata?

Sure. For those that aren't aware of the application/directory
MIME type it is a product of the directory services ASID group
within the IETF. The format is basically attribute/value
with per attribute qualifiers seperated by semi-colons.
Here's an example:

Name;encoding=text/plain: Michael Mealling
Image;value=url: http://www.foo.com/bla.gif
Updated;value=date: 31/12/97


etc... The MIME headers are fairly generic except for
the 'profile' attribute of the content-type. This is
used to specify the profile or schema that the 
attributes and value in the body adhere to. WEBDAV
would probably define a handfull of these to handle
most operations. A profile gets to define a) the
possible attributes, b) the possible values and c)
the possible attribute qualifiers.

Its still a simply attribute value encoding
that is simply to parse but it is hooks to allow
for handling things like character sets, encodings,
schema specification, etc.

-MM