Subject: text/plain Base64?

From: Eric Scheid <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 14:48:54 +1000

I know content with @type != text/* or */xml *+xml MUST be Base64 encoded,
but what about content with those magic types ... should the spec say that
they MUST NOT be Base64 encoded?

How would I send plain text which contains control codes (eg <FF>, <BELL>,
etc) in a <content> element?

Am I forced to put them in a separate file and refer via @src? Even if they
are very short pieces of text?

e.

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From: Tim Bray <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 09 Apr 2005 23:27:31 -0700

> etc) in a <content> element?

You wouldn't be able to send them.  I see this as another benefit of 
Atom.

Seriously, FF and BELL are exceptions in the menagerie of 
tiny-code-point crufty-ASCII-legacy in that they actually have 
semantics.  But then there's ENQ and ACK and NAK and ETB and their 
misbegotten friends, the presence of which in your data is a strong 
signal that something is seriously broken.  XML 1.1 would allow you to 
use these things, but this advantage has failed to win XML 1.1 much of 
a market presence.  Which I take as indicative.  -Tim

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From: David Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2005 12:21:35 +0100

> they MUST NOT be Base64 encoded?

Nobody ever answered this. It's just a minor point, but I think that
the answer is "yes".

-- 
Dave