[OASIS Issue Tracker] Commented: (AMQP-11) Message Properties.content-type MIME types need adjustment to fit new section types

[OASIS Issues Tracker <workgroup_mailer@lists.oasis-open.org>]

    [ http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/AMQP-11?page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel&focusedCommentId=29216#action_29216 ] 

Rob Godfrey commented on AMQP-11:
---------------------------------

Propose the following change to make clear that content-type should not be set, and content-encoding MUST NOT be set if the application-data section isn't "data".

Furthermore clarify the wording around content-type where the content type is unknown at the sender to bring them into line with best practice (i.e. only explicitly set to application/octet-stream if the data is known to be opaque binary, otherwise leave unset and let the recipient try to work out if it can handle it - the recipient should always fall back to application/octet-stream anyway.

Proposed change:

Index: specification/messaging.xml
===================================================================
--- specification/messaging.xml	(revision 69)
+++ specification/messaging.xml	(working copy)
@@ -424,18 +424,19 @@
         <doc>
           <p>
             The RFC-2046 [<xref name="RFC2046">RFC2046</xref>] MIME type for the Message's
-            application-data section (body).
+            application-data section (body). As per RFC-2046 [<xref name="RFC2046">RFC2046</xref>]
+            this may contain a charset parameter defining the character encoding used: e.g.,
+            'text/plain; charset="utf-8"'.
           </p>
           <p>
-            As per RFC-2046 [<xref name="RFC2046">RFC2046</xref>] this may contain a charset
-            parameter defining
-            the character encoding used: e.g. 'text/plain; charset="utf-8"'. For clarity, the
-            correct MIME type for a truly opaque binary section is application/octet-stream.
+            For clarity, as per section 7.2.1 of RFC-2616 [<xref name="RFC2616">RFC2616</xref>],
+            where the content type is unknown the content-type SHOULD NOT be set. This allows the
+            recipient the opportunity to determine the actual type. Where the section is known to be
+            truly opaque binary data, the content-type SHOULD be set to application/octet-stream.
           </p>
           <p>
             When using an application-data section with a section code other than <i>data</i>,
-            content-type, if set, SHOULD be set to a MIME type of message/x-amqp+?, where '?' is
-            either data, map or list.
+            content-type SHOULD NOT be set.
           </p>
         </doc>
       </field>
@@ -443,7 +444,7 @@
       <field name="content-encoding" type="symbol" label="MIME content type">
         <doc>
           <p>
-            The Content-Encoding property is used as a modifier to the content-type.
+            The content-encoding property is used as a modifier to the content-type.
             When present, its value indicates what additional content encodings have been applied
             to the application-data, and thus what decoding mechanisms must be applied in order to
             obtain the media-type referenced by the content-type header field.
@@ -458,8 +459,9 @@
             Encodings are registered at IANA [<xref name="IANAHTTPPARAMS">IANAHTTPPARAMS</xref>].
           </p>
           <p>
-            Content-Encoding MUST not be set when the application-data section is other than
-            <i>data</i>.
+            The content-encoding MUST NOT be set when the application-data section is other than
+            <i>data</i>. The binary representation of all other application-data section types is
+            defined completely in terms of the AMQP type system.
           </p>
           <p>
             Implementations MUST NOT use the <i>identity</i> encoding. Instead, implementations


> Message Properties.content-type MIME types need adjustment to fit new section types
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>                 Key: AMQP-11
>                 URL: http://tools.oasis-open.org/issues/browse/AMQP-11
>             Project: OASIS Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) TC
>          Issue Type: Improvement
>            Reporter: Raphael Cohen
>            Assignee: Rafael Schloming
>
> Message Properties.content-type MIME types need adjustment to fit new section types
> Are they still map, list and data?

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