Re: Opaque data, XML, and SOAP

On Tuesday, Mar 11, 2003, at 11:36 US/Eastern, Martin Gudgin wrote:
>>
>>> What is obvious to me is that the infoset is a very poor place to
>>> carry  large binary data.
>>
>> Hmmm.  I tend to agree, but it probably depends on what
>> "large" means in a particular context. I'll guess that what
>> we need are well-specified mechanisms that would allow
>> systems designers to *either* carry reasonably-sized binary
>> data along with the infoset when that is appropriate, or to
>> attach references to unreasonably sized binary data for the
>> situations where embedding it in the infoset is
>> inappropriate.
>
> Given that the Infoset is an abstraction, rather than a serialization,
> what does 'embedding it in the infoset' mean?
>
+1. IMO we need a standard mechanism for 'abstractly including' binary 
data in an infoset. By 'abstractly including' I mean that the data is 
included in an abstract sense rather than included literally as CIIs. 
'Binary smart' processing can take account of the abstract inclusion, 
existing processing can ignore it.

In practice this would probably take the form of a standard reference 
mechanism within the SOAP message and an external MIME envelope to hold 
the SOAP message and (none, some or all of) the associated binary data 
(the none/some cases allowing for external references to support the 
portable cache metaphor). If required, the reference could be flexible 
enough to allow inlining using a suitable encoding.

Regards,
Marc.

--
Marc Hadley <marc.hadley@sun.com>
Web Technologies and Standards, Sun Microsystems.

Received on Tuesday, 11 March 2003 12:13:35 UTC