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Re: Action request: mime-type of xml-dtd should be treated as text

From: Thomas Scheffler <thomas.scheffler_at_uni-jena.de>
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2008 07:06:32 +0100

Am Dienstag, 5. Februar 2008 schrieb John Peacock:
> Thomas Scheffler wrote:
> > What can be a good reason to store the same file over and over again,
> > when data structure and content do not change? Is that a comon case now?
>
> All files are stored on the Subversion server as binary (using a fairly
> advanced scheme to track changes between versions), so this has nothing
> to do with your complaint.

You got me wrong. I am not complaining about the storage of the diff but on
the user interface. That I have little control about when a file is handled
like a binary file, which means I can not get usable blame and diff outputs.

> > I really like to have a diff and see right by svnnotify that just a two
> > attributes changed their order if thats the case. If subversion makes a
> > diff for it and stores it and I possibly can read it, why should I hang
> > with "binary files differ"? What is so great about it?
>
> You are missing the point. All files that have MIME types of
> 'application/*' are by definition binary:
>
> http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2046.txt

"application -- some other kind of data, typically either uninterpreted binary
data or information to be processed by an application."

The "or information to be processed by an application" is the most important
one. This is the common case for xml here, that's why xhtml documents should
be "application/xhtml+xml" (http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml-media-types/).

>
> There is a MIME type, text/xml:
>
> http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2376.txt
>
> which can be used for XML documents that are to be treated as text. It
> would be wrong to make some exception for application/xml* which just
> isn't 100% correct.

The fact is that it would be in nearly 100% of the cases out there perfect.
RFC2376:
"Every XML entity is suitable for use with the application/xml media type
without modification"

RFC2046:
"text -- textual information.[..] Other subtypes are to be used for enriched
text in forms where application software may enhance the appearance of the
text, but such software must not be required in order to get the general idea
of the content."

The in the latter case this means something like, if your grand mother can
read it it is fine to use text/xml. In any other case and if you are not
sure "application/xml" is allways right.

> > So imho here is a huge loss in function if compared to CVS. And you did
> > not convinced be so far that it is not.
>
> CVS had virtually no support for binary types at all, so you are really
> throwing out a red herring here...

CVS uses the kb flag to determine if a file is binary or not. A user can set
this flag like he wants. This has consequences for end of line characters and
for the outputs of blame and diff. CVS does not guess when a file is binary
or not. The user has to tell that it is binary else it is handled like text.

So you can not make something like "Diffs are readable by persons if and only
if mime type is text/*." of it.

Greets

Thomas

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Received on 2008-02-06 07:06:58 CET

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