Re: [Turtle] N-Triples Prime First Editors Draft

On 29 Aug 2011, at 13:26, Andy Seaborne wrote:
> The content type suggested is:
> 
>  text/ntriples+turtle
> 
> but text defaults to ASCII.

It defaults to ISO-8859-1 to be precise.

So it would need the same handling as Turtle and N3, which require “;charset=utf-8” appended to the media type.

There is ongoing work in IETF to change the default for text/*:
http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-melnikov-mime-default-charset-01

But I don't know anything about the status of that work, or how likely it is to become official, or at what timeframe.

> N-triples is less readable than Turtle and more directed to machine processing.
> 
>  application/n-triples+turtle
> 
> seems more appropriate and allows the default charset to be UTF-8.

RFC 2046 has this to say about the text/* types:

[[
In the absence of appropriate interpretation software, it is reasonable to show subtypes of "text" to the user, while it is not reasonable to do so with most nontextual data.
]]

While it says this about application/*:

[[
This is information which must be processed by an application before it is viewable or usable by a user.
]]

Also, application/* subtypes unknown to an implementation MUST be treated as binary data.

In practical terms, opening text/* in a browser causes it to be displayed, while opening application/* causes it to be downloaded. (At least in my browser of choice; I don't know how others behave.)

There's mixed precedent. JSON uses application/*, HTML uses text/*, CSV uses text/*.

Best,
Richard


> 
>  Andy
> 
> On 24/08/11 00:52, Gavin Carothers wrote:
>> Hey folks,
>> 
>> Have added an initial draft of N-Triples Prime (name to be agreed on
>> later) to a branch of the Turtle specification.
>> 
>> http://dvcs.w3.org/hg/rdf/raw-file/n-triples/rdf-turtle/index.html
>> 
>> Branch is named "n-triples".
>> 
>> Issues:
>> The RDF WG has not settled on a name for N′, N′ is used to distinguish
>> it from the RDF Test Cases N-Triples. ( Should I say "N\u2032" )
>> The RDF WG has specified N-Triples Prime to allow UTF-8 characters in
>> IRIs, literals and blank node identifiers. Readers with an opinion
>> about whether or not N-Triples should be ASCII-only may wish to
>> comment. (huh, that is poor language and not correct copied from old
>> issue, will fix later)
>> Current grammar doesn't deal with comments correctly. (For any value of correct)
>> Current grammar doesn't deal with triple lines that end in EOF rather
>> then EOL. (neither did the old one)
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Gavin
>> 
>

Received on Monday, 29 August 2011 15:18:11 UTC