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

From: Paul Koning <Paul_Koning_at_dell.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 13:47:06 -0500

>>>>> "John" == John Peacock <john.peacock_at_havurah-software.org> writes:

 John> Mark Irving wrote:
>> An XML DTD is often, but not always, prepared with a text editor
>> or a syntax-aware text editor. Exactly the same claim can be made
>> about, say, a C++ source file. If SVN presents C++ source as text,
>> shouldn't it do the same for application/xml-dtd? The argument is
>> weaker for application/xml, which is more likely to be edited with
>> a specialized program, but is often text.

 John> I've already responded several times to these threads
 John> explaining that in the generic case, all XML files are not
 John> "text documents" from the point of view of Subversion (or
 John> ordinary diff tools for that matter). So far, no one seems to
 John> believe me, perhaps because I have not been using the
 John> appropriate language. Let me try again. ...

I find Mark's C++ analogy a lot more convincing than the argument you
gave.

Another consideration is this: binary file functionality in Subversion
is a strict subset of text file functionality. So, even if it is true
that for SOME XML files it is not helpful to consider it as a text
file, treating XML a text cannot possibly do harm, but it often will
be a benefit. Conversely, treating XML as binary data cannot possibly
be helpful, but it often will be a problem.

Finally, there's the "principle of least astonishment". If a file
looks like text (if I open it in a text editor, I see printable
characters -- which is the case for XML) then the expected behavior is
that tools will treat it as text.

     paul

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Received on 2008-02-06 21:53:56 CET

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