Re: text/xml for SOAP is incorrect

On Thu, Sep 20, 2001 at 10:29:15AM -0700, John J. Barton wrote:
> At 03:10 PM 9/19/2001 -0700, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> 
> >So, let's imagine an intermediary that modifies XHTML in-flight
> >(not pleasant, I know, but bear with me).
> >
> >If SOAP and XHTML share application/xml, the intermediary can't
> >use the content-type to find XHTML messages for processing, which
> >it can scan for very efficienty. Instead, to behave properly, it
> >has to look for application/xml, and then parse the XML (perhaps
> >with SAX, so that they can stream) to figure out what the root
> >namespace is.
> 
> Is application/xml defined as a media type that is XHTML and can be
> transformed by an intermediary?  If so, then no SOAP application
> should send application/xml.  If not, then any intermediary that
> pretends that "application/xml means XHTML" will just be
> misdesigned.
> 
> It is my understanding that application/xml does not imply XHTML
> and transformable.  Developers of intermediaries should band
> together to develop a clear, unambiguous, and efficient header for
> transformable XML content.  In my opinion they will not be able to
> use application/xml for this whether or not SOAP uses it for its
> media type.

Anything sent by HTTP is transformable, unless it has a
'no-transform' Cache-Control header associated. 

Additionally, it is an unfortunate truth that intermediaries may not
honor no-transform, because the access provicer's policy is that the
transformation is not optional.

application/xml implies that it may be XHTML.




-- 
Mark Nottingham
http://www.mnot.net/
 

Received on Thursday, 20 September 2001 13:45:19 UTC