Subject: What is a media type?

From: David Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2005 01:03:26 +0100

The "type" attribute of atom:content can be a MIME media type:

> 4.1.3  The "atom:content" Element
[...]
> 4.1.3.1  The "type" attribute
[...]
> [...] Failing that, it MUST be a MIME media type [RFC2045] with a
> discrete top-level type (see Section 5 of [RFC2045]).

After looking at RFC2045, I wasn't very clear about what a "media
type" is.

Does it include parameters? Parts of 2045 suggest that a "media type"
might include parameters:

> 5.  Content-Type Header Field
> 
> The purpose of the Content-Type field is to describe the data
> contained in the body [...] The value in this field is called a
> media type.

Other parts (most of the document in fact), suggest that a "media
type" is only the top level element, such as "text":

> After the media type and subtype names, the remainder of the header
> field is simply a set of parameters

Is "media type" an accurate term for us to use?

I'm asking this because I really don't know whether parameters are
supposed to be allowed in the "type" attribute or not.

-- 
Dave

---

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 22:33:12 -0700

In my experience, "media type" is colloquially used to mean the 
type/subtype construct, without parameters; a particular context 
specifies whether parameters is allowed (e.g., Content-Type). That 
said, it's not clear in the specs; there is no ABNF rule or even terms 
that I can find that we could refer to to disambiguate this.

We should probably be more precise.

As previously mentioned, the updated reference will be to:
   http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-freed-media-type-reg-03.txt

I might make a last call comment to the effect that it would be handy 
to have some to have some terminology disambiguated here.

Cheers,

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

---

From: Bjoern Hoehrmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 15:12:14 +0200

>supposed to be allowed in the "type" attribute or not.

http://www.imc.org/atom-syntax/mail-archive/msg08283.html
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