To: uri@bunyip.com
In-Reply-To: Marshall Rose's message of Tue, 30 Nov 1993 07:45:50 -0800 <25208.754674350@dbc.mtview.ca.us>
Subject: Re: File Type/Directory Annotation for FTP URL Spec
From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
Message-Id: <93Nov30.174958pst.2732@golden.parc.xerox.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 17:49:43 PST
>>>>> On Tue, 30 Nov 1993 07:45:50 -0800, Marshall Rose <mrose@dbc.mtview.ca.us> said:
> As a model, I would suggest people look at the message/external-body
> content-type in MIME. This content-type contains two parts, URL-like
> information and the content-type of the remotely-stored content.
> The syntax of message/external-body is different from the URL syntax. I
> am not suggsting you change the URL syntactic rules. But, I do suggest
> that see if you can get similar, or perhaps even identical semantics.
The main problem I see is that URL notation seems to be used as
frequently (if not more so) for pointing to external DIRECTORIES as it
is to individual files. This isn't a case that seems to be supported
by the MIME message/external-body, since there is no 'type', and the
command is to 'NLST' or 'LIST' the results and then guess their
appropriate transfer types.