Re: MIME's 'Content-Disposition' Header

[Ned Freed <NED@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> > 3.6  Content-Disposition and the Main Message
> >
> >     It is permissible to use Content-Disposition on the main body
> >     of an [RFC 822] message.  Althouth the meanings of the two
> >     current dispositions (`inline' and `attachment') are
> >     respectively vacuous and undefined, it is anticipated that
> >     future dispositions might be more amenable for use with main
> >     messages (one might imagine a "print" disposition to
> >     implement a print-by-mail service, for example).

> A disposition of attachment with a main body makes sense to me.
> Suppose the main body is a binary data file of some sort.  It would
> make sense not to automatically display it to the user.

> Both inline and attachment make sense with the main body if a file name
> is specified.

But in both of these cases you are not labelling the main body -- there isn't
one! You are just labelling the one and only object that the message happens to
contain, and that becomes the "main body" only by virtue of being the *only*
body.

Main body here refers to the (usually initial) part that contains purely
descriptive material. The current dispositions really don't make sense in this
context -- such material is inherently inline and not an attachment of any
sort.

				Ned