Re: [xml-dev] Text/xml with omitted charset parameter

[John Cowan <cowan@mercury.ccil.org>]

Elliotte Rusty Harold scripsit:

> So is it the case, then, that the default for everything in the text/*
> tree must be ASCII or 8859-1? It's not possible for the subtype text/xml
> to provide a different default than the type text?

The whole point of registering a format under text/* is that a dumb
interpreter can treat it as plain text, expecting CR/LF line terminators not
too infrequently, if it doesn't know what to do with it.  Furthermore,
unless the charset parameter says otherwise it can treat it as ASCII.
the rock-bottom Internet interoperability default.

Dumb interpreters rarely, if ever, should treat XML as plain text (displaying
it as-is, for example).

-- 
John Cowan           http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
Please leave your values        |       Check your assumptions.  In fact,
   at the front desk.           |          check your assumptions at the door.
     --sign in Paris hotel      |            --Miles Vorkosigan