Issue 266 Differentiating the type of binary Content when no schema is present

Currently we don't mandate the use of XML Schema which enable
differentiating the content to be either xs:base64Binary or
xs:hexBinary. 

The question that is asked is how to distinguish the content in the
absence of XML Schema to rely on in LC 266[1]. The issue also presents
one possible solution to this problem which is also listed below in (1).


There are several possibilities: 

(1) Allow use of xsi:type in the document to indicate the actual type of
the element. We think that this is one possible way to designate the
type, but can not be mandated by our note due to (2) below. 

(2) When MTOM/XOP is used in conjunction with the note, the content is
always going to be xs:base64Binary due to media type of the outer
envelope. In this case, there is no ambiguity about the type of the
content. It can not be xs:hexBinary. 

We recognize that since one particular approach can not be mendated,
i.e. use of hexBinary is not compatible with MTOM/XOP, one other
possibility may be to:

(3) Eliminate the use of xs:hexBinary in the specification (which was
adopted as an extension by the wg) or to allow it only when there is an
associated schema with the document. This is to reduce the
interoperability problem. 

We encourage the wg to discuss (3) in order to the interop problem. If
we desire to retain xs:hexBinary, our proposal is make an amendement to
the specification to allow (1), (2) or other mechanisms without
mandating a specific way to resolve the ambiguity. 

[1] 
http://dev.w3.org/cvsweb/%7Echeckout%7E/2002/ws/desc/issues/wsd-issues-c
ondensed.html#x266

Received on Wednesday, 5 January 2005 23:49:31 UTC