Re: text/xml for SOAP is incorrect

One of the issues I've been meaning to raise is that SOAP messages
should have 
   Cache-Control: no-store, no-tranform

always appended in HTTP. However, this won't do any good for
intermediaries that don't pay attention to them, for whatever reason.
I also know that some will object to this for philosophical reasons.

Using a different content-type identifies the message clearly as a
SOAP message, lessening the likelyhood that it will match the
heuristic of an intermediary looking for XHTML, etc. In the process,
this will also lessen the overhead imposed on SOAP messages by such
intermediaries, as outlined earlier.

What are the strong reasons for leaving it at application/xml,
instead of definng a SOAP-specific content-type? What great harm will
this cause? The only argument that I've seen is based on a slippery
slope fallacy.

For that matter, one could argue that SOAP's content-type should be
text/plain; after all, that describes the format; the fact that it's
text with an XML structure imposed is irrelevant.



On Thu, Sep 20, 2001 at 01:00:22PM -0700, John J. Barton wrote:
> At 10:45 AM 9/20/2001 -0700, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> >Anything sent by HTTP is transformable, unless it has a
> >'no-transform' Cache-Control header associated.
> 
> And we cannot change this fact with Content-type.
> 
> >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.
> 
> And we cannot change this fact with Content-type either.
> 
> >application/xml implies that it may be XHTML.
> 
> But application/xml does not imply that it is XHTML either.
> 
> As far as your intermediaries are concerned what is wrong
> with "SOAP messages SHOULD set Cache-Control to "no-transform"?
> 
> ______________________________________________________
> John J. Barton          email:  John_Barton@hpl.hp.com
> http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/John_Barton/index.htm
> MS 1U-17  Hewlett-Packard Labs
> 1501 Page Mill Road              phone: (650)-236-2888
> Palo Alto CA  94304-1126         FAX:   (650)-857-5100
> 

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

Received on Thursday, 20 September 2001 16:27:23 UTC