Re: [WSG] Sending correct MYME-TYPE and content

[Lachlan Hunt]

Subbu Allamaraju wrote:
On 2/11/07, Lachlan Hunt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
header("Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml; charset=UTF-8");

You don't need to include the charset parameter in this header for
XML MIME types (this does not apply to text/html).  XML is designed
as a self describing format and does not need the information to be
there.

Will you care to elaborate this? You're saying that since "xml is 
self-describig" there is no need to include the encoding parameter in
content-type.

Yes.

http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-webarch-20041215/#xml-media-types

In the absence of the encoding parameter in the content type, the client has to 
parse
the preamble using some default/safe encoding, and then reparse the
complete response with the encoding found in the preamble. The
encoding parameter in the content type saves this trouble.

While that is true under some conditions for HTML when you declare the 
encoding using the meta element instead of at the protocol level, it is 
not true for XML.  An XML parser never needs to reparse anything.

The algorithm in the XML recommendation has been carefully designed to 
ensure that the encoding can always be reliably determined, or else it 
is a fatal error.  See Appendix F.

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#sec-guessing

--
Lachlan Hunt
http://lachy.id.au/


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