[DAS2] Content type for DAS XML responses

[Allen Day]

sounds good, can we get a patch to the spec so i can make the necessary 
implementation changes and test against browsers?  thanks!

-allen


On Fri, 17 Dec 2004, Andrew Dalke wrote:

> Steve:
> > Currently, the DAS/2 spec dictates that responses should have 
> > content-types
> > like:
> >
> >   application/x-das-source
> >   application/x-das-types
> >   application/x-das-region
> >
> > Changing these to be 'text/xml' would be more convenient since the 
> > content
> > would then be viewable in a standard web browser.
> 
> A browser should send something like
> 
> Accept: */*
>    or
> Accept: application/xml
> 
> or some other generic content type in its headers.  One solution
> to at least consider is that IF a client does not request
> application/x-das-whatever THEN return application/xml .  I do
> not believe this is appropriate though.
> 
> 
> >   text/xml; dasformat=source
> >   text/xml; dasformat=types
> >   text/xml; dasformat=region
> 
> I get confused; is it "text/xml" or "application/xml"?  Ah-ha!
> RFC 3023 says (  http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3023.html )
> 
>     If an XML document -- that is, the unprocessed, source XML document
>     -- is readable by casual users, text/xml is preferable to
>     application/xml.  MIME user agents (and web user agents) that do not
>     have explicit support for text/xml will treat it as text/plain, for
>     example, by displaying the XML MIME entity as plain text.
>     Application/xml is preferable when the XML MIME entity is unreadable
>     by casual users.
> 
> That RFC is relevant to this discussion.  If I understand it
> correctly it recommends using something more like
> 
>    text/x-das-source+xml
> 
> This would be understood by RFC 3023 compliant clients as
> containing an XML document, by DAS clients to understand
> which DAS XML format is used, and by generic clients to
> contain an XML document.
> 
> > The corresponding compact content-types could be:
> >
> >   text/plain; dasformat=compact-source
> >   text/plain; dasformat=compact-types
> >   text/plain; dasformat=compact-region
> 
> There should be no need for this.  A client should use
> the catch-all text/* handler for text/x-compact-source
> and show it as normal text.
> 
> > And other types could be:
> >
> >   text/plain; dasformat=fasta
> >   text/plain; dasformat=gff3
> >   text/plain; dasformat=bed
> 
> Same for these.  What's the problem with
>    text/x-fasta , etc.?
> 
> See also the discussion in appendix A.5 which describes
> practical problems about using parameter in MIME types.
> 
> 					Andrew
> 					dalke at dalkescientific.com
> 
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