Re: AtomPub Multipart Open Issues

["Thomas Broyer" <t.broyer@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 1:47 PM, Sylvain Hellegouarch wrote:
>
>> On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 10:52 AM, Sylvain Hellegouarch wrote:
>>>
>>> I have to agree with Bill. "related" is only one use of the multipart
>>> subtypes. Joe, rather than post-options="multipart", why not using
>>> multipart="related|form-data|alternative|...".
>>
>> Except that not all multipart types don't have the notion of a "root
>> part":
>>  - multipart/form-data is likely to be used with parts such as
>> "title", "summary", "summary-type", "content", "content-type",
>> "author", etc. and even if an Atom Entry would be sent, there's no
>> notion of a "root part"
>>  - how would you use multipart/alternative? And you cannot reference
>> one "alternative" from another using a cid: URI, it would be a
>> multipart/related (eventually included as one of the "alternative"
>> parts).
>
> I don't quite see how that precludes the use of the
> multipart="related|form-data|alternative|..." style of attribute. Your
> point is more about why and how AtomPub services should consider choosing
> and handling one of the subtype.

Right, sorry, I misunderstood your point...
However, it won't work as it precludes the use of multipart/related
for things that aren't draft-gregorio-atompub-multipart -compatible
...or it makes them undistinguishable: ah OK, supports
multipart/related, but is it supporting
draft-gregorio-atompub-multipart? is it supporting CompoundEntries?
http://intertwingly.net/wiki/pie/PaceCompoundEntries

And it won't work also because "form-data" isn't specific enough:
which "fields"? how are they named? (or maybe there should only be one
non-file field, containing an Atom Entry, and referencing the attached
resources using their file-name: <content src="EntryContent.html" />)

But if you're only talking about the attribute's "style", then OK (see
last line of this mail); you'd have to define it as NTOKENS though to
allow things like multipart="alternative x-CompoundEntry"

>> @Joe: what's the problem with advertising
>> <app:accept>multipart/related;type="application/atom+xml;type=entry"</app:accept>?
>
> I was wondering about that too. But then again multipart/related would
> look sufficient to me, wouldn't it?

hmm... no. Can I POST an "MHTML" (multipart/related;type="text/html")?

And actually the above wouldn't work either: see above about
CompoundEntries. Only referencing "draft-gregorio-atompub-multipart"
explicitly would work:
<app:accept>multipart/related;type="application/atom+xml;start-info=draft-gregorio-atompub-multipart</app:accept>
or
multipart="draft-gregorio-atompub-multipart"


-- 
Thomas Broyer