RE: text/xml for SOAP is incorrect

I don't have a strong view on this issue. 

I am somewhat taken with the view that the content-type for a SOAP message
is "application/xml" or "text/xml". 

I was wondering if there would be anything too awful about creating a new
MIME/HTTP header for use in conjuction with content-types of "*/xml" called
"Root-Element-Name" which encoded the fully qualified element name of the
document's root element.

Coarse dispatching could be done on "content-type" and fine-gran dispatching
at some meta-XML processor done on "Root-ElementName". 

This would avoid overloading 'content-type', it would be generic and
decentralised for XML documents of all kinds. 

I don't think that we want to go 'sub-typing' XML documents below the fully
qualified name of the root element... it would get ugly to do that!

Just a thought... there are probably reasons why this is not a good idea.

Regards

Stuart

> -----Original Message-----
> From: christopher ferris [mailto:chris.ferris@east.sun.com]
> Sent: 19 September 2001 12:49
> To: Henrik Frystyk Nielsen
> Cc: christopher ferris; Mark Nottingham; Jacek Kopecky;
> xml-dist-app@w3.org
> Subject: Re: text/xml for SOAP is incorrect
> 
> 
> Henrik,
> 
> Certainly you agree that SOAP is it's own thing.
> It just happens to also be XML. SOAP has its own process 
> model. Why the resistance to a soap-specific
> media type? Certainly seems mostly harmless to me.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Chris
> 
> Henrik Frystyk Nielsen wrote:
> > 
> > >Sure, why not? You can reflect the SOAP version in a MIME
> > >"version" parameter on the Content-Type header. Dispatchers
> > >can choose whether to use this (or not) as they see fit. A
> > >SOAP processor can make the determination as to support of the
> > >namespace by inspecting the namespace and further dispatching
> > >as needed (or loading the right modules, schema, whatever).
> > 
> > How is this different from regular XML processing to the 
> degree that it
> > requires a special content type?
> > 
> > Henrik
>

Received on Wednesday, 19 September 2001 09:13:45 UTC