- From: Larry Masinter <lmm@acm.org>
- Date: Wed, 1 Dec 1999 08:22:14 PST
- To: "Chris Lilley" <chris@w3.org>, "MURATA Makoto" <murata.makoto@fujixerox.co.jp>
- Cc: "Dan Connolly" <connolly@w3.org>, <timbl@w3.org>, <simonstl@simonstl.com>, <ietf-xml-mime@imc.org>, <Tsmith@parc.xerox.com>, <xsl-editors@w3.org>
Chris Lilley wrote: > > > a) application/xml for xml files. All are required to be well > formed,as > > > per the XML specification, otherwise it is a fatal error. > > > b) application/xml-epe for external parsed entities which are not > > > themselves well-formed instances MURATA Makoto replied: > > Point of clarification. I have an external parsed entity. I use > > it only as an external parsed entity. Incidentally, it also parses > > as an XML document, but this was never intended. Which one should > > I use? Chris Lilley wrote: > The algorithm is as follows: > > Is it well formed instance > Yes: use a) > No: use b) This is not an appropriate algorithm. The choice of the MIME type to use for a communication depends on the intent of the communication as well as the nature of the body of the communication. It might be appropriate to use text/plain, for example, if you intend for the recipient to read the actual XML rather than interpret it, and it might be appropriate to use application/octet-stream if you want no interpretation at all. The point is that the general question of "this message body, which MIME type should I use" can always have multiple answers (since application/octet-stream usually applies, for example). The XHTML group got caught up in this, since there are some XHTML bodies for which 'text/html' are appropriate and others that are not. Don't try to construct a functional one-to-one mapping from message body content to MIME type, because you can and will get multiple values.
Received on Wednesday, 1 December 1999 11:21:34 UTC