New draft: Application/Multiplexed

I have submitted a new IETF draft on the Application/Multiplexed
Content-Type. Its URL is
http://search.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-herriot-application-multiplexed
-00.txt

This draft is simpler than the two previous drafts for Application/BatchBeep
and Multipart/Interleaved and results from feedback about the two previous
drafts.

An Application/Multiplexed entity consists of one or more chunks. Each chunk
starts with a chunk header line whose syntax is:

"CHK" SP messageNumber SP length SP isMore CR LF

For example, message 3 split into two chunks might have the headers 
"CHK 3 512 Y CR LF" and "CHK 3 358 N CR LF". 

The last chunk is an empty chunk with just the header line "CHK 0 0 N CR
LF".

I intend for the proposed solution to solve a useful class of printing
problems that Multipart/Related does not solve.  I also recognize that a
protocol would solve and even wider class of problems, but there are cases
in the printing world where a single stream of bytes is a better solution
than a protocol, e.g. when the submitter of the print job doesn't hang
around until the printing occurs.

I would appreciate comments.

Bob Herriot

Received on Friday, 4 May 2001 00:15:43 UTC