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Add "content" parameter to MIME type application/x-votable+xml#76

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mbtaylor:content-mime
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Add "content" parameter to MIME type application/x-votable+xml#76
mbtaylor wants to merge 1 commit intoivoa-std:masterfrom
mbtaylor:content-mime

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@mbtaylor mbtaylor commented Feb 3, 2026

The content parameter has been used for some while by DataLink (e.g. application/x-votable+xml; content=datalink), so that parameter should really be defined in the standard where the MIME type itself is defined, i.e. VOTable.

Reorganise the MIME type description a little bit and take the opportunity to update a couple of the referenced RFCs with ones by which they are obsoleted.

Modernise advice about character encoding in line with RFC7303: advise always to use UTF-8, deprecate use of the charset parameter, and withdraw comments about a US-ASCII default which are no longer true.

The content parameter has been used for some while by DataLink
(e.g. application/x-votable+xml; content=datalink), so that
parameter should really be defined in the standard where
the MIME type itself is defined, i.e. VOTable.

Reorganise the MIME type description a little bit and take the
opportunity to update a couple of the referenced RFCs with
ones by which they are obsoleted.

Modernise advice about character encoding in line with RFC7303:
advise always to use UTF-8, deprecate use of the charset parameter,
and withdraw comments about a US-ASCII default which are no longer true.
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mbtaylor commented Feb 3, 2026

This PR addresses issues #26 and #15, which more or less duplicate each other.

@mbtaylor mbtaylor requested a review from pdowler February 3, 2026 14:47
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As a matter of terminological tidyness, I would probably be happier if we used the opportunity to change "MIME type" to "media type", which the IETF is recommending for all I can see; it also makes sense because the E in MIME is E-Mail, which is a bit remote from what we're doing here.

But then I don't care enough to do it myself, and so I'm not unhappy if VOTable keeps talking about MIME:

\item {\textsf{text/xml}}
\item {\textsf{text/xml; charset={"}iso-8859-1"}}
\item {\textsf{application/x-votable+xml}}
\item {\textsf{APPLICATION/X-VOTABLE+XML; CONTENT=datalink}}
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Did you change the case here on purpose just to alert people to the media type's unfortunate case policy?

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Yes.

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I didn't think it was worth spelling out the case-insensitivity explicitly - I don't want to replicate the syntax rules from RFC 2045 here - but since we have examples here anyway I thought I'd take the opportunity to give an idea of the range of possible representations.

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mbtaylor commented Feb 4, 2026

Changing MIME type to Media Type sounds reasonable - I'll do it if nobody expresses a contrary opinion.

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