Re: MIME types and content negotiation

[Chris Lilley <chris@xxxxxx>]

"Simon St.Laurent" wrote:
> 
> At 06:21 PM 3/17/00 +0100, Chris Lilley wrote:
> >> To me, it seems like there should be a way for a client to say "You can
> >> send me your XML, and I'll give it my best shot", rather than "these are
> >> the only twenty types I know of".
> >
> >Accept: */*-xml;q=0.7, application/xml;q=0.5, text/xml;q=0.001
> 
> That sounds very good to me - it seems like another place where the suffix
> is useful.
> 
> However, it isn't clear from HTTP 1.1 that */*-xml is acceptable in this
> use case - the BNF for media range looks like it accepts */* and type/*,
> where * can only be used for an entire subtype name.

Ah, you are right. So either this can't be done, or HTTP/1.1 wo\ould need a
revision as a result of the -xml convention (and perhaps other faceted
types, and parameters.)

For example it also means that I can't say

Accept: image/cgm;Version=4;ProfileId="webcgm";q=0.8,
image/cgm;Version=1;ProfileId=*;q=0.3

> That's why I'm not so positive that this intriguing possibility actually
> helps my argument, at least pending a revision of HTTP 1.1.
> On the other hand, I don't think it hurts it.

What do other folks think about being able to say "all the stuff with -xml"

--
Chris