> The problem with base64 encoding of binary data in and of itself is that it
> says NOTHING about the format of the data, so despite the fact that it can
> be included within an XML document from a syntactical point of view, if
> people are complaining about 'ugly binary data' this does not solve the
> problem. Not that MIME has this problem completely fixed, but at least there
> is a Content-Type header which says at least something about the format of
> the data. MIME (and hence the cid: URI) has a standard mechanism for typing
> binary data.
>
> The Web has exploded in use not because of HTML itself, rather this in
> conjunction with HTTP's MIME variant -- to be realistic what would the Web
> be like without pictures i.e. gif and jpeg). If base64 is used within XML, a
> similar typing mechanism is also required.
Quite right. Right now, XML 1.0 has notations for this purpose, as
Eliot keeps reminding us; it would also be possible to invent a
standard attribute like 'xml:content', for use whether or not an
element's content was Base64-encoded:
<data xml:content="application/pdf" xml:packed="Base64">...</data>
All the best,
David
--
David Megginson david@megginson.com
http://www.megginson.com/