Auto-reply: Re: text/html for xml extensions of XHTML

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> Date: Fri, 4 May 2001 05:04:45 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)

The specific issue in this sub-thread:  What is the reason for a user
agent's policy-level refusal to parse as xml, rather than as tag soup,
an http object served as text/html upon finding an xml declaration at
the body origin.

(Moments after this discussion I was diverted for an extended period
from attention to this, and I have not been prompt in getting back to
it.)

> From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>

> ...

(Many arguments, some of which I disagree with.)

But then:

> In addition, there are several reasons why this is a bad idea in
> the first place:
. . .
> D. The Content-Type HTTP header is supposed to be the final word on how to
>    handle a data stream.


The HTTP Content-Type header is the only means available to the user
for deciding whether to give the HTTP object to an external application.

"text/xml" is simply too general to be sensible for internal handling by
unified http/html user agents.

                                    -- Bill