- From: Jeni Tennison <jeni@jenitennison.com>
- Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:15:17 +0100
- To: Paul Libbrecht <paul@hoplahup.net>
- Cc: "public-csv-wg@w3.org" <public-csv-wg@w3.org>, www-tag@w3.org
Hi Paul, We reviewed your comment about clipboard formats (see [1]) but as we’ve noted in discussion with you, we are not defining a media type declaration for CSV (this is out of scope for our charter) and therefore we do not intend to make any amendments to the specs as a consequence. Could you confirm that you’re content with this so that we can close the issue? Thanks, Jeni [1] https://github.com/w3c/csvw/issues/507 -- Jeni Tennison http://www.jenitennison.com/ On 19 April 2015 at 12:51:49, Paul Libbrecht (paul@hoplahup.net) wrote: > Dear Jeni and all, > > do I mistake or there is nothing about clipboard formats in this set of > specs? > Ideally, such would be in a media-type-declaration but it seems like the > one here would also be suited. > Basically: it would be clipboard flavour names for windows and UTI for OSX). > > The lack of such a convention has made it that HTML tables are sniffed > and partially successfully copy and pasted from some browsers to some > spreadsheets (thus far: Firefox + Excel only)... This seems to be the > only way thus far and, indeed, xls or csv exports are pretty common as > an extra service of web applications whereas a selection, copy, and > paste would widely more intuitive. > > thanks in advance. > > Paul > > > > On 18/04/15 12:24, Jeni Tennison wrote: > > Hello TAG, > > > > The CSV on the Web Working Group would like to request that the TAG review the following > Working Drafts: > > > > Model for Tabular Data and Metadata on the Web - > > http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-tabular-data-model-20150416/ > > Metadata Vocabulary for Tabular Data - > > http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-tabular-metadata-20150416/ > > Generating JSON from Tabular Data on the Web - > > http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-csv2json-20150416/ > > Generating RDF from Tabular Data on the Web - > > http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-csv2rdf-20150416/ > > > > There are three things in particular that I’d like to draw the TAG’s attention to, where > we have adopted a “pragmatic” rather than “correct” design: > > > > 1. We have a facility to enable transformations over tabular data using templates or > scripts [1], to provide for transformations beyond those we’ve defined for JSON and > RDF. In doing this we need to be able to indicate the format of both the result of the transformation > and the format of the template or script that is being used. > > > > We think that the “correct” way of doing this would be to use media types. However, it’s > quite rare for templating syntaxes (such as Mustache) to have a registered media type, > so instead we have opted to use URLs to name those formats and encourage users to use URLs > in the form http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/{mediatype} when there > is a registered media type. Is this the right approach to take or should we be more insistent > on the use of a media type? > > > > 2. In the conversion to RDF, we want to use the ‘describes’ link relation defined in [2] > to say that a particular row in the tabular data describes a particular thing (such as > a person or event). Because this is RDF, the relationship has to have a URL. > > > > However, as has been discussed elsewhere [3], IANA registered link relations do not > have individual URLs and http://www.iana.org/assignments/link-relations/describes > doesn’t resolve. Similarly, the link relation wiki doesn’t have individual URLs for > link relations. We decided to create a URL for this relationship in our own namespace, > with a reference to the proper definition (see discussion at [4]), but hope that this > case might prompt the TAG to try to get some movement on this issue. > > > > 3. The model of access that we’re assuming for CSV and other tabular data files is that > someone will link directly to the CSV file (as currently) and that processors will need > to retrieve a metadata file about that CSV based on the location of the CSV file. Note that > metadata files are file-specific; we wouldn’t expect a single metadata file that includes > information about every CSV file on a particular site. > > > > We think that the “correct” way of getting this pointer to a metadata file (given that > there is no scope for embedding information within the CSV file itself) is to use a Link > header that points to the metadata file, and we have specified that here [5]. > > > > However, we recognise that there are many publishing environments in which it is impossible > for users to set HTTP headers, particularly on an individual file basis. We have therefore > specified two other mechanisms to retrieve metadata files, used only if the URL of the > original CSV file doesn’t include a query string: > > > > * appending ‘-metadata.json’ to the end of the URL to get file-specific metadata [6] > > * resolving the URL ‘../metadata.json’ against the URL to get directory-level metadata > [7] > > > > Neither of these feels great: they require users who can’t use Link headers to structure > their URL space in particular ways, and they use string concatenation on URLs which is > horrible. However, we can’t see any better alternative to meet our requirement for what > is in effect a file-specific well known URI. > > > > We’d obviously welcome wider review of the documents if you have time, but these are > the three issues on which we’d particularly like your opinion. > > > > Thanks, > > > > Jeni > > > > [1] http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-tabular-metadata-20150416/#transformation-definitions > > [2] http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6892 > > [3] https://github.com/mnot/I-D/issues/39 > > [4] https://github.com/w3c/csvw/issues/297 > > [5] http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-tabular-data-model-20150416/#link-header > > [6] http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-tabular-data-model-20150416/#standard-file-metadata > > [7] http://www.w3.org/TR/2015/WD-tabular-data-model-20150416/#standard-directory-metadata > > -- > > Jeni Tennison > > http://www.jenitennison.com/ > > > > >
Received on Wednesday, 29 April 2015 12:15:37 UTC