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was not published as an RFC. C. Lilley
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September 24, 2009
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Draft Author(s): Status of this Memo
Murata Makoto <eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp>
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Abstract
This document standardizes three media types -- application/xml,
application/xml-external-parsed-entity, and application/xml-dtd --
for use in exchanging network entities that are related to the
Extensible Markup Language (XML) while deprecating text/xml and text/
xml-external-parsed-entity. This document also standardizes a
convention (using the suffix '+xml') for naming media types outside
of these five types when those media types represent XML MIME
entities. XML MIME entities are currently exchanged via the
HyperText Transfer Protocol on the World Wide Web, are an integral
part of the WebDAV protocol for remote web authoring, and are
expected to have utility in many domains.
Major differences from [RFC3023] are deprecation of text/xml and
text/xml-external-parsed-entity, the addition of XPointer and XML
Base as fragment identifiers and base URIs, respectively, mention of
the XPointer Registry, and updating of many references.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3. XML Media Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.1. Text/xml Registration (deprecated) . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.2. Application/xml Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3. Text/xml-external-parsed-entity Registration
(deprecated) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.4. Application/xml-external-parsed-entity Registration . . . 14
3.5. Application/xml-dtd Registration . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
3.6. Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4. The Byte Order Mark (BOM) and Conversions to/from the
UTF-16 Charset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5. Fragment Identifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
6. The Base URI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
7. XML Versions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
8. A Naming Convention for XML-Based Media Types . . . . . . . . 22
8.1. Referencing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
9. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
9.1. Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-8 Charset . . . . . . . . . 25
9.2. Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-16 Charset . . . . . . . . 25
9.3. Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-16BE Charset . . . . . . . 26
9.4. Text/xml (deprecated) with ISO-2022-KR Charset . . . . . . 26
9.5. Text/xml (deprecated) with Omitted Charset . . . . . . . . 26
9.6. Application/xml with UTF-16 Charset . . . . . . . . . . . 26
9.7. Application/xml with UTF-16BE Charset . . . . . . . . . . 27
9.8. Application/xml with ISO-2022-KR Charset . . . . . . . . . 27
9.9. Application/xml with Omitted Charset and UTF-16 XML
MIME Entity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
9.10. Application/xml with Omitted Charset and UTF-8 Entity . . 28
9.11. Application/xml with Omitted Charset and Internal
Encoding Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
9.12. Text/xml-external-parsed-entity (deprecated) with
UTF-8 Charset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
9.13. Application/xml-external-parsed-entity with UTF-16
Charset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
9.14. Application/xml-external-parsed-entity with UTF-16BE
Charset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
9.15. Application/xml-dtd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
9.16. Application/mathml+xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
9.17. Application/xslt+xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
9.18. Application/rdf+xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
9.19. Image/svg+xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9.20. model/x3d+xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9.21. INCONSISTENT EXAMPLE: Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-8
Charset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9.22. application/xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
9.23. Application/soap+xml . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
10. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
11. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
12. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
12.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
12.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Appendix A. Why Use the '+xml' Suffix for XML-Based MIME
Types? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
A.1. Why not just use text/xml or application/xml and let
the XML processor dispatch to the correct application
based on the referenced DTD? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
A.2. Why not create a new subtree (e.g., image/xml.svg) to
represent XML MIME types? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
A.3. Why not create a new top-level MIME type for XML-based
media types? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
A.4. Why not just have the MIME processor 'sniff' the
content to determine whether it is XML? . . . . . . . . . 42
A.5. Why not use a MIME parameter to specify that a media
type uses XML syntax? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
A.6. How about labeling with parameters in the other
direction (e.g., application/xml;
Content-Feature=iotp)? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
A.7. How about a new superclass MIME parameter that is
defined to apply to all MIME types (e.g.,
Content-Type: application/iotp; $superclass=xml)? . . . . 43
A.8. What about adding a new parameter to the
Content-Disposition header or creating a new
Content-Structure header to indicate XML syntax? . . . . . 44
A.9. How about a new Alternative-Content-Type header? . . . . . 44
A.10. How about using a conneg tag instead (e.g.,
accept-features: (syntax=xml))? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
A.11. How about a third-level content-type, such as
text/xml/rdf? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
A.12. Why use the plus ('+') character for the suffix '+xml'? . 45
A.13. What is the semantic difference between
application/foo and application/foo+xml? . . . . . . . . . 45
A.14. What happens when an even better markup language
(e.g., EBML) is defined, or a new category of data? . . . 45
A.15. Why must I use the '+xml' suffix for my new XML-based
media type? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
A.16. Why not redefine text/xml instead of deprecating it . . . 46
Appendix B. Changes from RFC 3023 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Appendix C. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1. Introduction
The World Wide Web Consortium has issued the Extensible Markup
Language (XML) 1.0 specification. [XML]. To enable the exchange of
XML network entities, this document standardizes three media types --
application/xml, application/xml-external-parsed-entity, and
application/xml-dtd --, deprecates two media types -- text/xml and
text/xml-external-parsed-entity --, as well as a naming convention
for identifying XML-based MIME media types.
XML entities are currently exchanged on the World Wide Web, and XML
is also used for property values and parameter marshalling by the
WebDAV [RFC4918] protocol for remote web authoring. Thus, there is a
need for a media type to properly label the exchange of XML network
entities.
Although XML is a subset of the Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML) ISO 8879 [SGML], which has been assigned the media types text/
sgml and application/sgml, there are several reasons why use of text/
sgml or application/sgml to label XML is inappropriate. First, there
exist many applications that can process XML, but that cannot process
SGML, due to SGML's larger feature set. Second, SGML applications
cannot always process XML entities, because XML uses features of
recent technical corrigenda to SGML. Third, the definition of text/
sgml and application/sgml in [RFC1874] includes parameters for SGML
bit combination transformation format (SGML-bctf), and SGML boot
attribute (SGML-boot). Since XML does not use these parameters, it
would be ambiguous if such parameters were given for an XML MIME
entity. For these reasons, the best approach for labeling XML
network entities has been to provide new media types for XML.
Since XML is an integral part of the WebDAV Distributed Authoring
Protocol, and since World Wide Web Consortium Recommendations are
assigned standards tree media types, and since similar media types
(HTML, SGML) have been assigned standards tree media types, the XML
media types were also placed in the standards tree [RFC3023].
Similarly, XML has been used as a foundation for other media types,
including types in every branch of the IETF media types tree. To
facilitate the processing of such types, media types based on XML,
but that are not identified using application/xml (or text/xml),
SHOULD be named using a suffix of '+xml' as described in Section 8.
This will allow XML-based tools -- browsers, editors, search engines,
and other processors -- to work with all XML-based media types.
2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
As defined in [RFC2781] (informative), the three charsets "utf-16",
"utf-16le", and "utf-16be" are used to label UTF-16 text. In this
document, "the UTF-16 family" refers to those three charsets. By
contrast, the phrases "utf-16" or UTF-16 in this document refer
specifically to the single charset "utf-16".
As sometimes happens between two communities, both MIME and XML have
defined the term entity, with different meanings. Section 2.4 of
[RFC2045] says:
"The term 'entity' refers specifically to the MIME-defined header
fields and contents of either a message or one of the parts in the
body of a multipart entity."
Section 4 of [XML] says:
"An XML document may consist of one or many storage units. These
are called entities; they all have content and are all (except for
the document entity and the external DTD subset) identified by
entity name".
In this document, "XML MIME entity" is defined as the latter (an XML
entity) encapsulated in the former (a MIME entity).
3. XML Media Types
This document standardizes three media types related to XML MIME
entities: application/xml, application/xml-external-parsed-entity,
and application/xml-dtd while deprecating text/xml and text/
xml-external-parsed-entity. Registration information for these media
types is described in the sections below.
Within the XML specification, XML MIME entities can be classified
into four types. In the XML terminology, they are called "document
entities", "external DTD subsets", "external parsed entities", and
"external parameter entities". The media type application/xml MAY be
used for "document entities", while application/
xml-external-parsed-entity SHOULD be used for "external parsed
entities". Note that [RFC3023] (which this document obsoletes)
recommended the use of text/xml and text/xml-external-parsed-entity
for document entities and external parsed entities, respectively.
Although these media types are still commonly used, this document
deprecates them for future interoperability. The media type
application/xml-dtd SHOULD be used for "external DTD subsets" or
"external parameter entities". application/xml MUST NOT be used for
"external parameter entities" or "external DTD subsets", and MUST NOT
be used for "external parsed entities" unless they are also well-
formed "document entities" and are referenced as such. Note that
[RFC2376] (which is obsolete) allowed such usage, although in
practice it is likely to have been rare.
Neither external DTD subsets nor external parameter entities parse as
XML documents, and while some XML document entities may be used as
external parsed entities and vice versa, there are many cases where
the two are not interchangeable. XML also has unparsed entities,
internal parsed entities, and internal parameter entities, but they
are not XML MIME entities.
Application/xml and application/xml-external-parsed-entity are
recommended. Unlike [RFC2376] or [RFC3023], this document deprecates
text/xml and text/xml-external-parsed-entity. The reasons are as
follows:
Conflicting specifications regarding the character encoding has
caused confusion. On the one hand, [RFC2046] specifies "The
default character set, which must be assumed in the absence of a
charset parameter, is US-ASCII.", [RFC2616] Section 3.7.1, defines
that "media subtypes of the 'text' type are defined to have a
default charset value of 'ISO-8859-1'", and [RFC2376] as well as
[RFC3023] specify the default charset is US-ASCII. On the other
hand, implementors and users of XML parsers, following Appendix F
of [XML], assume that the default is provided by the XML encoding
declaration or BOM. Note that this conflict does not exist for
application/xml or application/xml-external-parsed-entity (see
"Optional parameters" of application/xml registration in
Section 3.2).
An XML document -- that is, the unprocessed, source XML document
-- is unreadable by casual users. Note that MIME user agents that
do not have explicit support for text/xml will treat it as text/
plain, for example, by displaying the XML MIME entity as plain
text.
Using application/xml and application/xml-external-parsed-entity
instead of text/xml and text/xml-external-parsed-entity does not
loose any functionalities.
The top-level media type "text" has some restrictions on MIME
entities and they are described in [RFC2045] and [RFC2046]. In
particular, the UTF-16 family, UCS-4, and UTF-32 are not allowed
(except over HTTP [RFC2616], which uses a MIME-like mechanism).
However, section 4.3.3 of [XML] says:
"Each external parsed entity in an XML document may use a
different encoding for its characters. All XML processors MUST
be able to read entities in both the UTF-8 and UTF-16
encodings."
Thus, although all XML processors can read entities in at least
UTF-16, if an XML document or external parsed entity is encoded in
such character encoding schemes, it cannot be labeled as text/xml
or text/xml-external-parsed-entity (except for HTTP).
XML provides a general framework for defining sequences of structured
data. In some cases, it may be desirable to define new media types
that use XML but define a specific application of XML, perhaps due to
domain-specific display, editing, security considerations or runtime
information. Furthermore, such media types may allow UTF-8 or UTF-16
only and prohibit other charsets. This document does not prohibit
such media types and in fact expects them to proliferate. However,
developers of such media types are STRONGLY RECOMMENDED to use this
document as a basis for their registration. In particular, the
charset parameter SHOULD be used in the same manner, as described in
Section 8.1, in order to enhance interoperability.
An XML document labeled as application/xml, or with a +xml media
type, (or text/xml) might contain namespace declarations, stylesheet-
linking processing instructions (PIs), schema information, or other
declarations that might be used to suggest how the document is to be
processed. For example, a document might have the XHTML namespace
and a reference to a CSS stylesheet. Such a document might be
handled by applications that would use this information to dispatch
the document for appropriate processing.
3.1. Text/xml Registration (deprecated)
MIME media type name: text
MIME subtype name: xml
Mandatory parameters: none
Optional parameters: charset
Although listed as an optional parameter, the use of the charset
parameter is REQUIRED, unless the charset is us-ascii. The
charset parameter can also be used to provide protocol-specific
operations, such as charset-based content negotiation in HTTP.
"utf-8" [RFC3629] is the recommended value, representing the UTF-8
charset. UTF-8 is supported by all conforming processors of [XML]
If the XML MIME entity is transmitted via HTTP, which uses a MIME-
like mechanism that is exempt from the restrictions on the text
top-level type (see section 19.4.1 of [RFC2616]), "utf-16"
[RFC2781]) is also recommended. UTF-16 is supported by all
conforming processors of [XML]. Since the handling of CR, LF and
NUL for text types in most MIME applications would cause undesired
transformations of individual octets in UTF-16 multi-octet
characters, gateways from HTTP to these MIME applications MUST
transform the XML MIME entity from text/xml; charset="utf-16" to
application/xml; charset="utf-16".
Conformant with [RFC2046], if a text/xml entity is received with
the charset parameter omitted, MIME processors and XML processors
MUST use the default charset value of "us-ascii" [ASCII]. In
cases where the XML MIME entity is transmitted via HTTP, the
default charset value is still "us-ascii". (Note: There is an
inconsistency between this specification and HTTP/1.1, which uses
ISO-8859-1 [ISO8859] as the default for a historical reason.
Since it is the intersection of UTF-8 and ISO-8859-1 and since it
is already used by MIME, US-ASCII was chosen, as the default
charset for text/xml. However, it is known that many servers and
parsers ignore this default and rely on the XML encoding
declaration or BOM. Thus, application/xml is a more suitable
choice.
There are several reasons that the charset parameter was
authoritative. First, some MIME processing engines do transcoding
of MIME bodies of the top-level media type "text" without
reference to any of the internal content. Thus, it is possible
that some agent might change text/xml; charset="iso-2022-jp" to
text/xml; charset="utf-8" without modifying the encoding
declaration of an XML document. Second, text/xml must be
compatible with text/plain, since MIME agents that do not
understand text/xml will fallback to handling it as text/plain.
If the charset parameter for text/xml were not authoritative, such
fallback would cause data corruption. Third, recent web servers
have been improved so that server administrators can specify the
charset parameter. Fourth, [RFC2130] (informative) specifies that
the recommended specification scheme is the "charset" parameter.
Since the charset parameter is authoritative, the charset was
sometimes not declared within an XML encoding declaration. Thus,
special care was needed when the recipient stripped the MIME
header and provided persistent storage of the received XML MIME
entity (e.g., in a file system). Unless the charset is UTF-8 or
UTF-16, the recipient SHOULD also persistently store information
about the charset, perhaps by embedding a correct XML encoding
declaration within the XML MIME entity.
Encoding considerations: This media type MAY be encoded as
appropriate for the charset and the capabilities of the underlying
MIME transport. For 7-bit transports, data in UTF-8 MUST be
encoded in quoted-printable or base64. For 8-bit clean transport
(e.g., 8BITMIME [RFC1652] ESMTP or NNTP [RFC3977]), UTF-8 does not
need to be encoded. Over HTTP [RFC2616], no content-transfer-
encoding is necessary and UTF-16 may also be used.
Security considerations: See Section 11.
Interoperability considerations: XML has proven to be interoperable
across WebDAV clients and servers, and for import and export from
multiple XML authoring tools. For maximum interoperability,
validating processors are recommended. Although non-validating
processors may be more efficient, they are not required to handle
all features of XML. For further information, see sub-section 2.9
"Standalone Document Declaration" and section 5 "Conformance" of
[XML] .
Published specification: Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth
Edition) [XML].
Applications which use this media type: XML is device-, platform-,
and vendor-neutral and is supported by a wide range of Web user
agents, WebDAV [RFC4918] clients and servers, as well as XML
authoring tools.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): None.
Although no byte sequences can be counted on to always be
present, XML MIME entities in ASCII-compatible charsets
(including UTF-8) often begin with hexadecimal 3C 3F 78 6D 6C
("<?xml"), and those in UTF-16 often begin with hexadecimal FE
FF 00 3C 00 3F 00 78 00 6D 00 6C or FF FE 3C 00 3F 00 78 00 6D
00 6C 00 (the Byte Order Mark (BOM) followed by "<?xml"). For
more information, see Appendix F of [XML].
File extension(s): .xml
Macintosh File Type Code(s): "TEXT"
Person and email address for further information:
MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given) <eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp>
Daniel Kohn <dan@dankohn.com>
Chris Lilley <chris@w3.org>
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller: The XML specification is a work product of
the World Wide Web Consortium's XML Working Group, and was edited
by:
Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
Jean Paoli <jeanpa@microsoft.com>
C. M. Sperberg-McQueen <cmsmcq@uic.edu>
Eve Maler <eve.maler@east.sun.com>
Francois Yergeau <mailto:francois@yergeau.com>
The W3C, and the W3C XML Core Working Group, have change control
over the XML specification.
3.2. Application/xml Registration
MIME media type name: application
MIME subtype name: xml
Mandatory parameters: none
Optional parameters: charset
Although listed as an optional parameter, the use of the charset
parameter, when the charset is reliably known and agrees with the
encoding declaration, is RECOMMENDED, since this information can
be used by non-XML processors to determine authoritatively the
charset of the XML MIME entity. The charset parameter can also be
used to provide protocol-specific operations, such as charset-
based content negotiation in HTTP.
"utf-8" [RFC3629] and "utf-16" [RFC2781] are the recommended
values, representing the UTF-8 and UTF-16 charsets, respectively.
These charsets are preferred since they are supported by all
conforming processors of [XML].
If an application/xml entity is received where the charset
parameter is omitted, no information is being provided about the
charset by the MIME Content-Type header. Conforming XML
processors MUST follow the requirements in section 4.3.3 of [XML]
that directly address this contingency. However, MIME processors
that are not XML processors SHOULD NOT assume a default charset if
the charset parameter is omitted from an application/xml entity.
There are several reasons that the charset parameter is
authoritative. First, recent web servers have been improved so
that users can specify the charset parameter. Second, [RFC2130]
(informative) specifies that the recommended specification scheme
is the "charset" parameter.
On the other hand, it has been argued that the charset parameter
should be omitted and the mechanism described in Appendix F of
[XML] (which is non-normative) should be solely relied on. This
approach would allow users to avoid configuration of the charset
parameter; an XML document stored in a file is likely to contain a
correct encoding declaration or BOM (if necessary), since the
operating system does not typically provide charset information
for files. If users would like to rely on the encoding
declaration or BOM and to hide charset information from protocols,
they SHOULD determine not to use the parameter.
Since the charset parameter is authoritative, the charset is not
always declared within an XML encoding declaration. However,
since a receiving application can, with very high reliability,
determine the encoding of an XML document by reading it, the XML
encoding declaration SHOULD be provided and SHOULD agree with the
charset parameter. Special care is needed when the recipient
strips the MIME header and provides persistent storage of the
received XML MIME entity (e.g., in a file system). Unless the
charset is UTF-8 or UTF-16, the recipient SHOULD also persistently
store information about the charset, preferably by embedding a
correct XML encoding declaration within the XML MIME entity.
Encoding considerations: This media type MAY be encoded as
appropriate for the charset and the capabilities of the underlying
MIME transport. For 7-bit transports, data in either UTF-8 or
UTF-16 MUST be encoded in quoted-printable or base64. For 8-bit
clean transport (e.g., 8BITMIME [RFC1652] ESMTP or NNTP
[RFC3977]), UTF-8 is not encoded, but the UTF-16 family MUST be
encoded in base64. For binary clean transports (e.g., HTTP
[RFC2616]), no content-transfer-encoding is necessary.
Security considerations: See Section 11.
Interoperability considerations: Same as Section 3.1.
Published specification: Same as Section 3.1.
Applications which use this media type: Same as Section 3.1.
Additional information: Same as Section 3.1.
Person and email address for further information: Same as
Section 3.1.
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller: Same as Section 3.1.
3.3. Text/xml-external-parsed-entity Registration (deprecated)
MIME media type name: text
MIME subtype name: xml-external-parsed-entity
Mandatory parameters: none
Optional parameters: charset
The charset parameter of text/xml-external-parsed-entity is
handled the same as that of text/xml as described in Section 3.1.
Encoding considerations: Same as Section 3.1.
Security considerations: See Section 11.
Interoperability considerations: XML external parsed entities are as
interoperable as XML documents, though they have a less tightly
constrained structure and therefore need to be referenced by XML
documents for proper handling by XML processors. Similarly, XML
documents cannot be reliably used as external parsed entities
because external parsed entities are prohibited from having
standalone document declarations or DTDs. Identifying XML
external parsed entities with their own content type should
enhance interoperability of both XML documents and XML external
parsed entities.
Published specification: Same as Section 3.1.
Applications which use this media type: Same as Section 3.1.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): Same as Section 3.1.
File extension(s): .xml or .ent
Macintosh File Type Code(s): "TEXT"
Person and email address for further information: Same as
Section 3.1.
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller: Same as Section 3.1.
3.4. Application/xml-external-parsed-entity Registration
MIME media type name: application
MIME subtype name: xml-external-parsed-entity
Mandatory parameters: none
Optional parameters: charset
The charset parameter of application/xml-external-parsed-entity is
handled the same as that of application/xml as described in
Section 3.2.
Encoding considerations: Same as Section 3.2.
Security considerations: See Section 11.
Interoperability considerations: Same as those for text/
xml-external-parsed-entity as described in Section 3.3.
Published specification: Same as text/xml as described in
Section 3.1.
Applications which use this media type: Same as Section 3.1.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): Same as Section 3.1.
File extension(s): .xml or .ent
Macintosh File Type Code(s): "TEXT"
Person and email address for further information: Same as
Section 3.1.
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller: Same as Section 3.1.
3.5. Application/xml-dtd Registration
MIME media type name: application
MIME subtype name: xml-dtd
Mandatory parameters: none
Optional parameters: charset
The charset parameter of application/xml-dtd is handled the same
as that of application/xml as described in Section 3.2.
Encoding considerations: Same as Section 3.2.
Security considerations: See Section 11.
Interoperability considerations: XML DTDs have proven to be
interoperable by DTD authoring tools and XML browsers, among
others.
Published specification: Same as text/xml as described in
Section 3.1.
Applications which use this media type: DTD authoring tools handle
external DTD subsets as well as external parameter entities. XML
browsers may also access external DTD subsets and external
parameter entities.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): Same as Section 3.1.
File extension(s): .dtd or .mod
Macintosh File Type Code(s): "TEXT"
Person and email address for further information: Same as
Section 3.1.
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller: Same as Section 3.1.
3.6. Summary
The following list applies to application/xml, application/
xml-external-parsed-entity, application/xml-dtd, and XML-based media
types under top-level types other than "text" that define the charset
parameter according to this specification:
o Charset parameter is recommended, if it agrees with the xml
encoding declaration, and if present, it takes precedence.
o If the charset parameter is omitted, conforming XML processors
MUST follow the requirements in section 4.3.3 of [XML] or [XML1.1]
as appropriate.
Although text/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, and subtypes of
"text" having the "+xml" suffix are deprecated, the next list applies
to these media types:
o Charset parameter is strongly recommended.
o If the charset parameter is not specified, the default is "us-
ascii". The default of "iso-8859-1" in HTTP is explicitly
overridden.
o No error handling provisions.
o An encoding declaration, if present, is irrelevant, but when
saving a received resource as a file, the correct encoding
declaration SHOULD be inserted.
4. The Byte Order Mark (BOM) and Conversions to/from the UTF-16 Charset
Section 4.3.3 of [XML] specifies that XML MIME entities in the
charset "utf-16" MUST begin with a byte order mark (BOM), which is a
hexadecimal octet sequence 0xFE 0xFF (or 0xFF 0xFE, depending on
endian). The XML Recommendation further states that the BOM is an
encoding signature, and is not part of either the markup or the
character data of the XML document.
Due to the presence of the BOM, applications that convert XML from
"utf-16" to a non-Unicode encoding MUST strip the BOM before
conversion. Similarly, when converting from another encoding into
"utf-16", the BOM MUST be added after conversion is complete.
In addition to the charset "utf-16", [RFC2781] introduces "utf-16le"
(little endian) and "utf-16be" (big endian) as well. The BOM is
prohibited for these charsets. When an XML MIME entity is encoded in
"utf-16le" or "utf-16be", it MUST NOT begin with the BOM but SHOULD
contain an encoding declaration. Conversion from "utf-16" to "utf-
16be" or "utf-16le" and conversion in the other direction MUST strip
or add the BOM, respectively.
5. Fragment Identifiers
Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) may contain fragement identifiers
(see Section 3.5 of [RFC3986]). Likewise, Internationalized Resource
Identifiers (IRIs) [RFC3987] may contain fragement identifiers.
A family of specifications define fragment identifiers for XML media
types. The fragment identifier syntax for application/xml is defined
by two W3C Recommendations in this family, namely [XPointerFramework]
and [XPointerElement]. Schemes other than the element scheme MUST
NOT be specified as part of fragment identifiers for these media
types. In particular, the xpointer scheme MUST NOT be specified
since it is still at the W3C working draft stage.
When an XML-based MIME media type follows the naming convention
'+xml', the fragment identifier syntax for this media type SHALL
include the fragment identifier syntax for application/xml and
application/xml-external-parsed-entity. It MAY further allow other
registered schemes such as the xmlns scheme and other schemes.
A registry of XPointer schemes [XPtrReg] is maintained at the W3C.
Unregistered schemes SHOULD NOT be used.
If [XPointerFramework] and [XPointerElement] are inappropriate for
some XML-based media type, it SHOULD NOT follow the naming convention
'+xml'.
When a URI has a fragment identifier, it is encoded by a limited
subset of the repertoire of US-ASCII [ASCII] characters, as defined
in [RFC3986]. When a IRI contains a fragment identifier, it is
encoded by a much wider repertoire of characters. The conversion
between IRI fragment identifiers and URI fragment identifiers is
presented in Section 7 of [RFC3987].
An XPointer fragment identifier does not have to be resolved even
when an XML document is retrieved.
6. The Base URI
Section 5.1 of [RFC3986] specifies that the semantics of a relative
URI reference embedded in a MIME entity is dependent on the base URI.
The base URI is either (1) the base URI embedded in context, (2) the
base URI from the encapsulating entity, (3) the base URI from the
Retrieval URI, or (4) the default base URI, where (1) has the highest
precedence. [RFC3986] further specifies that the mechanism for
embedding the base URI is depaendent on the media type.
The media type dependent mechanism for embedding the base URI in a
MIME entity of type application/xml or application/
xml-external-parsed-entity is to use the xml:base attribute described
in detail in [XBase].
Note that the base URI may be embedded in a different MIME entity,
since the default value for the xml:base attribute may be specified
in an external DTD subset or external parameter entity.
7. XML Versions
application/xml, application/xml-external-parsed-entity, and
application/xml-dtd, text/xml(deprecated) and text/
xml-external-parsed-entity(deprecated) are to be used with [XML] In
all examples herein where version="1.0" is shown, it is understood
that version="1.1" may also be used, providing the content does
indeed conform to [XML1.1].
The normative requirement of this specification upon XML is to follow
the requirements of [XML], section 4.3.3. Except for minor
clarifications, that section is substantially identical from the
first edition to the current (5th) edition of XML 1.0, and for XML
1.1. Therefore, this specification may be used with any version or
edition of XML 1.0 or 1.1.
Specifications and recommendations based on or referring to this RFC
SHOULD indicate any limitations on the particular versions of XML to
be used. For example, a particular specification might indicate:
"content MUST be represented using media-type application/xml, and
the document must either (a) carry an xml declaration specifying
version="1.0" or (b) omit the XML declaration, in which case per the
XML recommendation the version defaults to 1.0"
8. A Naming Convention for XML-Based Media Types
This document recommends the use of a naming convention (a suffix of
'+xml') for identifying XML-based MIME media types, whatever their
particular content may represent. This allows the use of generic XML
processors and technologies on a wide variety of different XML
document types at a minimum cost, using existing frameworks for media
type registration.
Although the use of a suffix was not considered as part of the
original MIME architecture, this choice is considered to provide the
most functionality with the least potential for interoperability
problems or lack of future extensibility. The alternatives to the
'+xml' suffix and the reason for its selection are described in
Appendix A.
As XML development continues, new XML document types are appearing
rapidly. Many of these XML document types would benefit from the
identification possibilities of a more specific MIME media type than
text/xml or application/xml can provide, and it is likely that many
new media types for XML-based document types will be registered in
the near and ongoing future.
While the benefits of specific MIME types for particular types of XML
documents are significant, all XML documents share common structures
and syntax that make possible common processing.
Some areas where 'generic' processing is useful include:
o Browsing - An XML browser can display any XML document with a
provided [CSS] or [XSLT] style sheet, whatever the vocabulary of
that document.
o Editing - Any XML editor can read, modify, and save any XML
document.
o Fragment identification - XPointers (see Section 5) can work with
any XML document, whatever vocabulary it uses.
o Hypertext linking - XLink (work in progress) hypertext linking is
designed to connect any XML documents, regardless of vocabulary.
o Searching - XML-oriented search engines, web crawlers, agents, and
query tools should be able to read XML documents and extract the
names and content of elements and attributes even if the tools are
ignorant of the particular vocabulary used for elements and
attributes.
o Storage - XML-oriented storage systems, which keep XML documents
internally in a parsed form, should similarly be able to process,
store, and recreate any XML document.
o Well-formedness and validity checking - An XML processor can
confirm that any XML document is well-formed and that it is valid
(i.e., conforms to its declared DTD or Schema).
When a new media type is introduced for an XML-based format, the name
of the media type SHOULD end with '+xml'. This convention will allow
applications that can process XML generically to detect that the MIME
entity is supposed to be an XML document, verify this assumption by
invoking some XML processor, and then process the XML document
accordingly. Applications may match for types that represent XML
MIME entities by comparing the subtype to the pattern '*/*+xml'. (Of
course, 4 of the 5 media types defined in this document -- text/xml,
application/xml, text/xml-external-parsed-entity, and application/
xml-external-parsed-entity -- also represent XML MIME entities while
not conforming to the '*/*+xml' pattern.)
NOTE: Section 14.1 of HTTP [RFC2616] does not support Accept
headers of the form "Accept: */*+xml" and so this header MUST NOT
be used in this way. Instead, content negotiation [RFC2703] could
potentially be used if an XML-based MIME type were needed.
Media types following the naming convention '+xml' SHOULD introduce
the charset parameter for consistency, since XML-generic processing
applies the same program for any such media type. However, there are
some cases that the charset parameter needs not be introduced. For
example:
When an XML-based media type is restricted to UTF-8, it is not
necessary to introduce the charset paramter. "UTF-8 only" is a
generic principle and UTF-8 is the default of XML.
When an XML-based media type is restricted to UTF-8 and UTF-16, it
might not be unreasonable to omit the charset parameter. Neither
UTF-8 nor UTF-16 require encoding declarations of XML.
Note: Some argue that XML-based media types should not introduce
the charset parameter, although others disagree.
XML generic processing is not always appropriate for XML-based media
types. For example, authors of some such media types may wish that
the types remain entirely opaque except to applications that are
specifically designed to deal with that media type. By NOT following
the naming convention '+xml', such media types can avoid XML-generic
processing. Since generic processing will be useful in many cases,
however -- including in some situations that are difficult to predict
ahead of time -- those registering media types SHOULD use the '+xml'
convention unless they have a particularly compelling reason not to.
The registration process for these media types is described in
[RFC4288] and [RFC4289] . The registrar for the IETF tree will
encourage new XML-based media type registrations in the IETF tree to
follow this guideline. Registrars for other trees SHOULD follow this
convention in order to ensure maximum interoperability of their XML-
based documents. Similarly, media subtypes that do not represent XML
MIME entities MUST NOT be allowed to register with a '+xml' suffix.
8.1. Referencing
Registrations for new XML-based media types under the top-level type
"text" are discouraged for the same reasons that text/xml and text/
xml-external-parsed-entity are deprecated.
Registrations for new XML-based media types under top-level types
other than "text" SHOULD, in specifying the charset parameter and
encoding considerations, define them as: "Same as [charset parameter
/ encoding considerations] of application/xml as specified in RFC
XXXX."
The use of the charset parameter is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED, since this
information can be used by XML processors to determine
authoritatively the charset of the XML MIME entity. If there are
some reasons not to follow this advice, they SHOULD be included as
part of the registration. As shown above, two such reasons are
"UTF-8 only" or "UTF-8 or UTF-16 only".
These registrations SHOULD specify that the XML-based media type
being registered has all of the security considerations described in
RFC XXXX plus any additional considerations specific to that media
type.
These registrations SHOULD also make reference to RFC XXXX in
specifying magic numbers, fragment identifiers, base URIs, and use of
the BOM.
These registrations MAY reference the applicaiton/xml registration in
RFC XXXX in specifying interoperability considerations, if these
considerations are not overridden by issues specific to that media
type.
9. Examples
The examples below give the value of the MIME Content-type header and
the XML declaration (which includes the encoding declaration) inside
the XML MIME entity. For UTF-16 examples, the Byte Order Mark
character is denoted as "{BOM}", and the XML declaration is assumed
to come at the beginning of the XML MIME entity, immediately
following the BOM. Note that other MIME headers may be present, and
the XML MIME entity may contain other data in addition to the XML
declaration; the examples focus on the Content-type header and the
encoding declaration for clarity.
9.1. Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-8 Charset
Content-type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
This is the recommended charset value for use with text/xml. Since
the charset parameter is provided, MIME and XML processors MUST treat
the enclosed entity as UTF-8 encoded.
If sent using a 7-bit transport (e.g. SMTP [RFC5321]), the XML MIME
entity MUST use a content-transfer-encoding of either quoted-
printable or base64. For an 8-bit clean transport (e.g., 8BITMIME
ESMTP or NNTP), or a binary clean transport (e.g., HTTP), no content-
transfer-encoding is necessary.
9.2. Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-16 Charset
Content-type: text/xml; charset="utf-16"
{BOM}<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-16'?>
or
{BOM}<?xml version='1.0'?>
This is possible only when the XML MIME entity is transmitted via
HTTP, which uses a MIME-like mechanism and is a binary-clean
protocol, hence does not perform CR and LF transformations and allows
NUL octets. As described in [RFC2781], the UTF-16 family MUST NOT be
used with media types under the top-level type "text" except over
HTTP (see section 19.4.1 of [RFC2616] for details).
Since HTTP is binary clean, no content-transfer-encoding is
necessary.
9.3. Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-16BE Charset
Content-type: text/xml; charset="utf-16be"
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-16be'?>
Observe that the BOM does not exist. This is again possible only
when the XML MIME entity is transmitted via HTTP.
9.4. Text/xml (deprecated) with ISO-2022-KR Charset
Content-type: text/xml; charset="iso-2022-kr"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding='iso-2022-kr'?>
This example shows text/xml with a Korean charset (e.g., Hangul)
encoded following the specification in [RFC1557]. Since the charset
parameter is provided, MIME and XML processors MUST treat the
enclosed entity as encoded per RFC 1557.
Since ISO-2022-KR has been defined to use only 7 bits of data, no
content-transfer-encoding is necessary with any transport.
9.5. Text/xml (deprecated) with Omitted Charset
Content-type: text/xml
{BOM}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
or
{BOM}<?xml version="1.0"?>
This example shows text/xml with the charset parameter omitted. In
this case, MIME and XML processors MUST assume the charset is "us-
ascii", the default charset value for text media types specified in
[RFC2046]. The default of "us-ascii" holds even if the text/xml
entity is transported using HTTP.
Omitting the charset parameter is NOT RECOMMENDED for text/xml. For
example, even if the contents of the XML MIME entity are UTF-16 or
UTF-8, or the XML MIME entity has an explicit encoding declaration,
XML and MIME processors MUST assume the charset is "us-ascii".
9.6. Application/xml with UTF-16 Charset
Content-type: application/xml; charset="utf-16"
{BOM}<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>
or
{BOM}<?xml version="1.0"?>
This is a recommended charset value for use with application/xml.
Since the charset parameter is provided, MIME and XML processors MUST
treat the enclosed entity as UTF-16 encoded.
If sent using a 7-bit transport (e.g., SMTP) or an 8-bit clean
transport (e.g., 8BITMIME ESMTP or NNTP), the XML MIME entity MUST be
encoded in quoted-printable or base64. For a binary clean transport
(e.g., HTTP), no content-transfer-encoding is necessary.
9.7. Application/xml with UTF-16BE Charset
Content-type: application/xml; charset="utf-16be"
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-16be'?>
Observe that the BOM does not exist. Since the charset parameter is
provided, MIME and XML processors MUST treat the enclosed entity as
UTF-16BE encoded.
9.8. Application/xml with ISO-2022-KR Charset
Content-type: application/xml; charset="iso-2022-kr"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-2022-kr"?>
This example shows application/xml with a Korean charset (e.g.,
Hangul) encoded following the specification in [RFC1557]. Since the
charset parameter is provided, MIME and XML processors MUST treat the
enclosed entity as encoded per RFC 1557, independent of whether the
XML MIME entity has an internal encoding declaration (this example
does show such a declaration, which agrees with the charset
parameter).
Since ISO-2022-KR has been defined to use only 7 bits of data, no
content-transfer-encoding is necessary with any transport.
9.9. Application/xml with Omitted Charset and UTF-16 XML MIME Entity
Content-type: application/xml
{BOM}<?xml version='1.0' encoding="utf-16"?>
or
{BOM}<?xml version='1.0'?>
For this example, the XML MIME entity begins with a BOM. Since the
charset has been omitted, a conforming XML processor follows the
requirements of [XML], section 4.3.3. Specifically, the XML
processor reads the BOM, and thus knows deterministically that the
charset is UTF-16.
An XML-unaware MIME processor SHOULD make no assumptions about the
charset of the XML MIME entity.
9.10. Application/xml with Omitted Charset and UTF-8 Entity
Content-type: application/xml
<?xml version='1.0'?>
In this example, the charset parameter has been omitted, and there is
no BOM. Since there is no BOM, the XML processor follows the
requirements in section 4.3.3, and optionally applies the mechanism
described in Appendix F (which is non-normative) of [XML] to
determine the charset encoding of UTF-8. The XML MIME entity does
not contain an encoding declaration, but since the encoding is UTF-8,
this is still a conforming XML MIME entity.
An XML-unaware MIME processor SHOULD make no assumptions about the
charset of the XML MIME entity.
9.11. Application/xml with Omitted Charset and Internal Encoding
Declaration
Content-type: application/xml
<?xml version='1.0' encoding="iso-10646-ucs-4"?>
In this example, the charset parameter has been omitted, and there is
no BOM. However, the XML MIME entity does have an encoding
declaration inside the XML MIME entity that specifies the entity's
charset. Following the requirements in section 4.3.3, and optionally
applying the mechanism described in Appendix F (non-normative) of
[XML], the XML processor determines the charset encoding of the XML
MIME entity (in this example, UCS-4).
An XML-unaware MIME processor SHOULD make no assumptions about the
charset of the XML MIME entity.
9.12. Text/xml-external-parsed-entity (deprecated) with UTF-8 Charset
Content-type: text/xml-external-parsed-entity; charset="utf-8"
<?xml encoding="utf-8"?>
This is the recommended charset value for use with text/
xml-external-parsed-entity. Since the charset parameter is provided,
MIME and XML processors MUST treat the enclosed entity as UTF-8
encoded.
If sent using a 7-bit transport (e.g. SMTP), the XML MIME entity
MUST use a content-transfer-encoding of either quoted-printable or
base64. For an 8-bit clean transport (e.g., 8BITMIME ESMTP or NNTP),
or a binary clean transport (e.g., HTTP) no content-transfer-encoding
is necessary.
9.13. Application/xml-external-parsed-entity with UTF-16 Charset
Content-type: application/xml-external-parsed-entity;
charset="utf-16"
{BOM}<?xml encoding="utf-16"?>
or
{BOM}<?xml?>
This is a recommended charset value for use with application/
xml-external-parsed-entity. Since the charset parameter is provided,
MIME and XML processors MUST treat the enclosed entity as UTF-16
encoded.
If sent using a 7-bit transport (e.g., SMTP) or an 8-bit clean
transport (e.g., 8BITMIME ESMTP or NNTP), the XML MIME entity MUST be
encoded in quoted-printable or base64. For a binary clean transport
(e.g., HTTP), no content-transfer-encoding is necessary.
9.14. Application/xml-external-parsed-entity with UTF-16BE Charset
Content-type: application/xml-external-parsed-entity; charset="utf-
16be"
<?xml encoding="utf-16be"?>
Since the charset parameter is provided, MIME and XML processors MUST
treat the enclosed entity as UTF-16BE encoded.
9.15. Application/xml-dtd
Content-type: application/xml-dtd; charset="utf-8"
<?xml encoding="utf-8"?>
Charset "utf-8" is a recommended charset value for use with
application/xml-dtd. Since the charset parameter is provided, MIME
and XML processors MUST treat the enclosed entity as UTF-8 encoded.
9.16. Application/mathml+xml
Content-type: application/mathml+xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
MathML documents are XML documents whose content describes
mathematical information, as defined by [MathML]. As a format based
on XML, MathML documents SHOULD use the '+xml' suffix convention in
their MIME content-type identifier. However, no content type has yet
been registered for MathML and so this media type should not be used
until such registration has been completed.
9.17. Application/xslt+xml
Content-type: application/xslt+xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
Extensible Stylesheet Language (XSLT) documents are XML documents
whose content describes stylesheets for other XML documents, as
defined by [XSLT]. As a format based on XML, XSLT documents SHOULD
use the '+xml' suffix convention in their MIME content-type
identifier. However, no content type has yet been registered for
XSLT and so this media type should not be used until such
registration has been completed.
9.18. Application/rdf+xml
Content-type: application/rdf+xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
Resources identified using the application/rdf+xml media type are XML
documents whose content describe RDF metadata. This media type has
been registered at IANA and is fully defined in [RFC3870].
9.19. Image/svg+xml
Content-type: image/svg+xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) documents are XML documents whose
content describes graphical information, as defined by [SVG]. As a
format based on XML, SVG documents SHOULD use the '+xml' suffix
convention in their MIME content-type identifier. Content type
registration for SVG is in progress, [SVGMediaType] but depends on
the present document.
9.20. model/x3d+xml
Content-type: model/x3d+xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
X3D is derived from VRML and is used for 3D models. Besides the XML
representation, it may also be serialised in classic VRML syntax and
using a fast infoset. Separate, but clearly related media types are
used for these serialisations (model/x3d+vrml and model/
x3d+fastinfoset respectively)..
9.21. INCONSISTENT EXAMPLE: Text/xml (deprecated) with UTF-8 Charset
Content-type: text/xml; charset="utf-8"
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
Since the charset parameter is provided in the Content-Type header,
MIME and XML processors MUST treat the enclosed entity as UTF-8
encoded. That is, the "iso-8859-1" encoding MUST be ignored.
Processors generating XML MIME entities MUST NOT label conflicting
charset information between the MIME Content-Type and the XML
declaration.
9.22. application/xml
Content-type: application/xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
Since the charset parameter is not provided in the Content-Type
header, MIME and XML processors MUST treat the "iso-8859-1" encoding
as authoritative.
Processors generating XML MIME entities MUST NOT label conflicting
charset information between the MIME Content-Type and the XML
declaration.
9.23. Application/soap+xml
Content-type: application/soap+xml
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
Resources identified using the application/soap+xml media type are
SOAP 1.2 message envelopes that have been serialized with XML 1.0.
This media type has been registered at IANA and is fully defined in
[RFC3902].
10. IANA Considerations
As described in Section 8, this document updates the [RFC4288] and
[RFC4289] registration process for XML-based MIME types.
11. Security Considerations
XML, as a subset of SGML, has all of the same security considerations
as specified in [RFC1874], and likely more, due to its expected
ubiquitous deployment.
To paraphrase section 3 of RFC 1874, XML MIME entities contain
information to be parsed and processed by the recipient's XML system.
These entities may contain and such systems may permit explicit
system level commands to be executed while processing the data. To
the extent that an XML system will execute arbitrary command strings,
recipients of XML MIME entities may be a risk. In general, it may be
possible to specify commands that perform unauthorized file
operations or make changes to the display processor's environment
that affect subsequent operations.
In general, any information stored outside of the direct control of
the user -- including CSS style sheets, XSL transformations, entity
declarations, and DTDs -- can be a source of insecurity, by either
obvious or subtle means. For example, a tiny "whiteout attack"
modification made to a "master" style sheet could make words in
critical locations disappear in user documents, without directly
modifying the user document or the stylesheet it references. Thus,
the security of any XML document is vitally dependent on all of the
documents recursively referenced by that document.
The entity lists and DTDs for XHTML 1.0 [XHTML], for instance, are
likely to be a commonly used set of information. Many developers
will use and trust them, few of whom will know much about the level
of security on the W3C's servers, or on any similarly trusted
repository.
The simplest attack involves adding declarations that break
validation. Adding extraneous declarations to a list of character
entities can effectively "break the contract" used by documents. A
tiny change that produces a fatal error in a DTD could halt XML
processing on a large scale. Extraneous declarations are fairly
obvious, but more sophisticated tricks, like changing attributes from
being optional to required, can be difficult to track down. Perhaps
the most dangerous option available to crackers is redefining default
values for attributes: e.g., if developers have relied on defaulted
attributes for security, a relatively small change might expose
enormous quantities of information.
Apart from the structural possibilities, another option, "entity
spoofing," can be used to insert text into documents, vandalizing and
perhaps conveying an unintended message. Because XML 1.0 permits
multiple entity declarations, and the first declaration takes
precedence, it's possible to insert malicious content where an entity
is used, such as by inserting the full text of Winnie the Pooh in
every occurrence of &mdash;.
Use of the digital signatures work currently underway by the xmldsig
working group may eventually ameliorate the dangers of referencing
external documents not under one's own control.
Use of XML is expected to be varied, and widespread. XML is under
scrutiny by a wide range of communities for use as a common syntax
for community-specific metadata. For example, the Dublin Core
[RFC5013] group is using XML for document metadata, and a new effort
has begun that is considering use of XML for medical information.
Other groups view XML as a mechanism for marshalling parameters for
remote procedure calls. More uses of XML will undoubtedly arise.
Security considerations will vary by domain of use. For example, XML
medical records will have much more stringent privacy and security
considerations than XML library metadata. Similarly, use of XML as a
parameter marshalling syntax necessitates a case by case security
review.
XML may also have some of the same security concerns as plain text.
Like plain text, XML can contain escape sequences that, when
displayed, have the potential to change the display processor
environment in ways that adversely affect subsequent operations.
Possible effects include, but are not limited to, locking the
keyboard, changing display parameters so subsequent displayed text is
unreadable, or even changing display parameters to deliberately
obscure or distort subsequent displayed material so that its meaning
is lost or altered. Display processors SHOULD either filter such
material from displayed text or else make sure to reset all important
settings after a given display operation is complete.
Some terminal devices have keys whose output, when pressed, can be
changed by sending the display processor a character sequence. If
this is possible the display of a text object containing such
character sequences could reprogram keys to perform some illicit or
dangerous action when the key is subsequently pressed by the user.
In some cases not only can keys be programmed, they can be triggered
remotely, making it possible for a text display operation to directly
perform some unwanted action. As such, the ability to program keys
SHOULD be blocked either by filtering or by disabling the ability to
program keys entirely.
Note that it is also possible to construct XML documents that make
use of what XML terms "entity references" (using the XML meaning of
the term "entity" as described in Section 2), to construct repeated
expansions of text. Recursive expansions are prohibited by [XML] and
XML processors are required to detect them. However, even non-
recursive expansions may cause problems with the finite computing
resources of computers, if they are performed many times. (Entity A
consists of 100 copies of entity B, which in turn consists of 100
copies of entity C, and so on)
12. References
12.1. Normative References
[ASCII] "US-ASCII. Coded Character Set -- 7-Bit American Standard
Code for Information Interchange", ANSI X3.4-1986, 1986.
[CSS] Bos, B., Lie, H., Lilley, C., and I. Jacobs, "Cascading
Style Sheets, level 2 (CSS2) Specification", World Wide
Web Consortium Recommendation REC-CSS2, May 1998,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/>.
[ISO8859] "ISO-8859. International Standard -- Information
Processing -- 8-bit Single-Byte Coded Graphic Character
Sets -- Part 1: Latin alphabet No. 1, ISO-8859-1:1987",
1987.
[MathML] Carlisle, D., Ion, P., Miner, R., and N. Poppelier,
"Mathematical Markup Language (MathML) Version 2.0 (Second
Edition)", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
MathML2, October 2003, <http://www.w3.org/TR/MathML2/>.
[PNG] Boutell, T., "PNG (Portable Network Graphics)
Specification", World Wide Web Consortium
Recommendation REC-png, October 1996,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-png>.
[RFC1652] Klensin, J., Freed, N., Rose, M., Stefferud, E., and D.
Crocker, "SMTP Service Extension for 8bit-MIMEtransport",
RFC 1652, July 1994.
[RFC2045] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet Message
Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996.
[RFC2046] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Two: Media Types", RFC 2046,
November 1996.
[RFC2077] Nelson, S., Parks, C., and Mitra, "The Model Primary
Content Type for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions",
RFC 2077, January 1997.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2445] Dawson, F. and D. Stenerson, "Internet Calendaring and
Scheduling Core Object Specification (iCalendar)",
RFC 2445, November 1998.
[RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Nielsen, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
[RFC3023] Murata, M., St.Laurent, S., and D. Kohn, "XML Media
Types", January 2001.
[RFC3501] Crispin, M., "Internet Message Access Protocol - Version
4rev1", RFC 3501, March 2003.
[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", RFC 3629, November 2003.
[RFC3977] Feather, B., "Network News Transfer Protocol", RFC 3977,
October 2006.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax.", RFC 3986,
January 2005.
[RFC3987] DUeerst, M. and M. Suignard, "Internationalized Resource
Identifiers (IRIs)", RFC 3987, July 2005.
[RFC4288] Freed, N. and J. Klensin, "Media Type Specifications and
Registration Procedures", RFC 4288, December 2005.
[RFC4289] Freed, N. and J. Klensin, "Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions (MIME) Part Four: Registration Procedures",
RFC 4289, December 2005.
[RFC4918] Dusseault, L., "HTTP Extensions for Distributed Authoring
-- WEBDAV", RFC 4918, June 2007.
[RFC5321] Klensin, J., "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", RFC 5321,
October 2008.
[SGML] International Standard Organization, "Information
Processing -- Text and Office Systems -- Standard
Generalized Markup Language (SGML)", ISO 8879,
October 1986.
[SVG] Ferraiolo, J., Fujisawa, F., and D. Jackson, "Scalable
Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 Specification", World Wide Web
Consortium Recommendation SVG, January 2004,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG11/>.
[SVGMediaType]
Anderson, O., "Media Type Registration for image/svg+xml",
December 2008,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGTiny12/mimereg.html>.
[TAGMIME] Bray, T., Ed., "Internet Media Type registration,
consistency of use", April 2004,
<http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/2004/0430-mime>.
[UML] Object Management Group, "OMG Unified Modeling Language
Specification, Version 1.3", OMG Specification ad/
99-06-08, June 1999, <http://www.omg.org/uml/>.
[XBase] Marsh, J., "XML Base", World Wide Web Consortium
Recommendation xmlbase, June 2001,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xmlbase>.
[XHTML] Pemberton, S. and et al, "XHTML 1.0: The Extensible
HyperText Markup Language", World Wide Web Consortium
Recommendation xhtml1, December 1999,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1>.
[XML] Bray, T., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C., Maler, E., and
F. Yergeau, "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth
Edition)", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
xml, November 2008, <http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml>.
[XML1.1] Bray, T., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C., Maler, E.,
Yergeau, F., and J. Cowan, "Extensible Markup Language
(XML) 1.1", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
xml, April 2004, <http://www.w3.org/TR/xml11>.
[XPointerElement]
Grosso, P., Maler, E., Marsh, J., and N. Walsh, "XPointer
element() Scheme", World Wide Web Consortium
Recommendation REC-XPointer-Element, March 2003,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-element/>.
[XPointerFramework]
Grosso, P., Maler, E., Marsh, J., and N. Walsh, "XPointer
Framework", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
XPointer-Framework, March 2003,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-framework/>.
[XPointerXmlns]
DeRose, S., Daniel, R., Maler, E., and J. Marsh, "XPointer
xmlns() Scheme", World Wide Web Consortium
Recommendation REC-XPointer-Xmlns, March 2003,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/xptr-xmlns/>.
[XPtrReg] Hazael-Massieux, D., "XPointer Registry", 2005,
<http://www.w3.org/2005/04/xpointer-schemes/>.
[XSLT] Clark , J., "XSL Transformations (XSLT) Version 1.0",
World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation xslt,
November 1999, <http://www.w3.org/TR/xslt>.
12.2. Informative References
[RFC1557] Choi, U., Chon, K., and H. Park, "Korean Character
Encoding for Internet Messages", RFC 1557, December 1993.
[RFC1874] Levinson, E., "SGML Media Types", RFC 1874, December 1995.
[RFC2130] Weider, C., Cecilia Preston, C., Simonsen, K., Alvestrand,
H., Atkinson, R., Crispin, M., and P. Svanberg, "The
Report of the IAB Character Set Workshop held 29 February
- 1 March, 1996", RFC 2130, April 1997.
[RFC2376] Whitehead, E. and M. Murata, "XML Media Types", RFC 2376,
July 1998.
[RFC2703] Klyne, G., "Protocol-independent Content Negotiation
Framework", RFC 2703, September 1999.
[RFC2781] Hoffman, P. and F. Yergeau, "UTF-16, an encoding of ISO
10646", RFC 2781, Februrary 2000.
[RFC2801] Burdett, D., "Internet Open Trading Protocol - IOTP
Version 1.0", RFC 2801, April 2000.
[RFC3870] 3870, A., "application/rdf+xml Media Type Registration",
RFC 3870, September 2004.
[RFC3902] Baker, M. and M. Nottingham, "The "application/soap+xml"
media type", RFC 3902, September 2004.
[RFC5013] Kunze, J. and T. Baker, "Dublin Core Metadata for Resource
Discovery", RFC 5013, August 2007.
Appendix A. Why Use the '+xml' Suffix for XML-Based MIME Types?
Although the use of a suffix was not considered as part of the
original MIME architecture, this choice is considered to provide the
most functionality with the least potential for interoperability
problems or lack of future extensibility. The alternatives to the
'+xml' suffix and the reason for its selection are described below.
A.1. Why not just use text/xml or application/xml and let the XML
processor dispatch to the correct application based on the
referenced DTD?
text/xml and application/xml remain useful in many situations,
especially for document-oriented applications that involve combining
XML with a stylesheet in order to present the data. However, XML is
also used to define entirely new data types, and an XML-based format
such as image/svg+xml fits the definition of a MIME media type
exactly as well as image/png [PNG] does. (Note that image/svg+xml is
not yet registered.) Although extra functionality is available for
MIME processors that are also XML processors, XML-based media types
-- even when treated as opaque, non-XML media types -- are just as
useful as any other media type and should be treated as such.
Since MIME dispatchers work off of the MIME type, use of text/xml or
application/xml to label discrete media types will hinder correct
dispatching and general interoperability. Finally, many XML
documents use neither DTDs nor namespaces, yet are perfectly legal
XML.
A.2. Why not create a new subtree (e.g., image/xml.svg) to represent
XML MIME types?
The subtree under which a media type is registered -- IETF, vendor
(*/vnd.*), or personal (*/prs.*); see [RFC4288] and [RFC4289] for
details -- is completely orthogonal from whether the media type uses
XML syntax or not. The suffix approach allows XML document types to
be identified within any subtree. The vendor subtree, for example,
is likely to include a large number of XML-based document types. By
using a suffix, rather than setting up a separate subtree, those
types may remain in the same location in the tree of MIME types that
they would have occupied had they not been based on XML.
A.3. Why not create a new top-level MIME type for XML-based media
types?
The top-level MIME type (e.g., model/* [RFC2077]) determines what
kind of content the type is, not what syntax it uses. For example,
agents using image/* to signal acceptance of any image format should
certainly be given access to media type image/svg+xml, which is in
all respects a standard image subtype. It just happens to use XML to
describe its syntax. The two aspects of the media type are
completely orthogonal.
XML-based data types will most likely be registered in ALL top-level
categories. Potential, though currently unregistered, examples could
include application/mathml+xml [MathML], model/uml+xml [UML], and
image/svg+xml [SVG].
A.4. Why not just have the MIME processor 'sniff' the content to
determine whether it is XML?
Rather than explicitly labeling XML-based media types, the processor
could look inside each type and see whether or not it is XML. The
processor could also cache a list of XML-based media types.
Although this method might work acceptably for some mail
applications, it would fail completely in many other uses of MIME.
For instance, an XML-based web crawler would have no way of
determining whether a file is XML except to fetch it and check. The
same issue applies in some IMAP4 [RFC3501] mail applications, where
the client first fetches the MIME type as part of the message
structure and then decides whether to fetch the MIME entity.
Requiring these fetches just to determine whether the MIME type is
XML could have significant bandwidth and latency disadvantages in
many situations.
Sniffing XML also isn't as simple as it might seem. DOCTYPE
declarations aren't required, and they can appear fairly deep into a
document under certain unpreventable circumstances. (E.g., the XML
declaration, comments, and processing instructions can occupy space
before the DOCTYPE declaration.) Even sniffing the DOCTYPE isn't
completely reliable, thanks to a variety of issues involving default
values for namespaces within external DTDs and overrides inside the
internal DTD. Finally, the variety in potential character encodings
(something XML provides tools to deal with), also makes reliable
sniffing less likely.
A.5. Why not use a MIME parameter to specify that a media type uses XML
syntax?
For example, one could use "Content-Type: application/iotp;
alternate-type=text/xml" or "Content-Type: application/iotp;
syntax=xml".
Section 5 of [RFC2045] says that "Parameters are modifiers of the
media subtype, and as such do not fundamentally affect the nature of
the content". However, all XML-based media types are by their nature
always XML. Parameters, as they have been defined in the MIME
architecture, are never invariant across all instantiations of a
media type.
More practically, very few if any MIME dispatchers and other MIME
agents support dispatching off of a parameter. While MIME agents on
the receiving side will need to be updated in either case to support
(or fall back to) generic XML processing, it has been suggested that
it is easier to implement this functionality when acting off of the
media type rather than a parameter. More important, sending agents
require no update to properly tag an image as "image/svg+xml", but
few if any sending agents currently support always tagging certain
content types with a parameter.
A.6. How about labeling with parameters in the other direction (e.g.,
application/xml; Content-Feature=iotp)?
This proposal fails under the simplest case, of a user with neither
knowledge of XML nor an XML-capable MIME dispatcher. In that case,
the user's MIME dispatcher is likely to dispatch the content to an
XML processing application when the correct default behavior should
be to dispatch the content to the application responsible for the
content type (e.g., an ecommerce engine for application/iotp+xml
[RFC2801], once this media type is registered).
Note that even if the user had already installed the appropriate
application (e.g., the ecommerce engine), and that installation had
updated the MIME registry, many operating system level MIME
registries such as .mailcap in Unix and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT in Windows
do not currently support dispatching off a parameter, and cannot
easily be upgraded to do so. And, even if the operating system were
upgraded to support this, each MIME dispatcher would also separately
need to be upgraded.
A.7. How about a new superclass MIME parameter that is defined to apply
to all MIME types (e.g., Content-Type: application/iotp;
$superclass=xml)?
This combines the problems of Appendix A.5 and Appendix A.6.
If the sender attaches an image/svg+xml file to a message and
includes the instructions "Please copy the French text on the road
sign", someone with an XML-aware MIME client and an XML browser but
no support for SVG can still probably open the file and copy the
text. By contrast, with superclasses, the sender must add superclass
support to her existing mailer AND the receiver must add superclass
support to his before this transaction can work correctly.
If the receiver comes to rely on the superclass tag being present and
applications are deployed relying on that tag (as always seems to
happen), then only upgraded senders will be able to interoperate with
those receiving applications.
A.8. What about adding a new parameter to the Content-Disposition
header or creating a new Content-Structure header to indicate XML
syntax?
This has nearly identical problems to Appendix A.7, in that it
requires both senders and receivers to be upgraded, and few if any
operating systems and MIME dispatchers support working off of
anything other than the MIME type.
A.9. How about a new Alternative-Content-Type header?
This is better than Appendix A.8, in that no extra functionality
needs to be added to a MIME registry to support dispatching of
information other than standard content types. However, it still
requires both sender and receiver to be upgraded, and it will also
fail in many cases (e.g., web hosting to an outsourced server), where
the user can set MIME types (often through implicit mapping to file
extensions), but has no way of adding arbitrary HTTP headers.
A.10. How about using a conneg tag instead (e.g., accept-features:
(syntax=xml))?
When the conneg protocol is fully defined, this may potentially be a
reasonable thing to do. But given the limited current state of
conneg [RFC2703] development, it is not a credible replacement for a
MIME-based solution.
Also, note that adding a content-type parameter doesn't work with
conneg either, since conneg only deals with media types, not their
parameters. This is another illustration of the limits of parameters
for MIME dispatchers.
A.11. How about a third-level content-type, such as text/xml/rdf?
MIME explicitly defines two levels of content type, the top-level for
the kind of content and the second-level for the specific media type.
[RFC4288] and [RFC4289] extends this in an interoperable way by using
prefixes to specify separate trees for IETF, vendor, and personal
registrations. This specification also extends the two-level type by
using the '+xml' suffix. In both cases, processors that are unaware
of these later specifications treat them as opaque and continue to
interoperate. By contrast, adding a third-level type would break the
current MIME architecture and cause numerous interoperability
failures.
A.12. Why use the plus ('+') character for the suffix '+xml'?
As specified in Section 5.1 of [RFC2045], a tspecial can't be used:
tspecials :=
"(" / ")" / "<" / ">" / "@" /
"," / ";" / ":" / "\" / <">
"/" / "[" / "]" / "?" / "="
It was thought that "." would not be a good choice since it is
already used as an additional hierarchy delimiter. Also, "*" has a
common wildcard meaning, and "-" and "_" are common word separators
and easily confused. The characters %'`#& are frequently used for
quoting or comments and so are not ideal.
That leaves: ~!$^+{}|
Note that "-" is used heavily in the current registry. "$" and "_"
are used once each. The others are currently unused.
It was thought that '+' expressed the semantics that a MIME type can
be treated (for example) as both scalable vector graphics AND ALSO as
XML; it is both simultaneously.
A.13. What is the semantic difference between application/foo and
application/foo+xml?
MIME processors that are unaware of XML will treat the '+xml' suffix
as completely opaque, so it is essential that no extra semantics be
assigned to its presence. Therefore, application/foo and
application/foo+xml SHOULD be treated as completely independent media
types. Although, for example, text/calendar+xml could be an XML
version of text/calendar [RFC2445], it is possible that this
(hypothetical) new media type would include new semantics as well as
new syntax, and in any case, there would be many applications that
support text/calendar but had not yet been upgraded to support text/
calendar+xml.
A.14. What happens when an even better markup language (e.g., EBML) is
defined, or a new category of data?
In the ten years that MIME has existed, XML is the first generic data
format that has seemed to justify special treatment, so it is hoped
that no further suffixes will be necessary. However, if some are
later defined, and these documents were also XML, they would need to
specify that the '+xml' suffix is always the outermost suffix (e.g.,
application/foo+ebml+xml not application/foo+xml+ebml). If they were
not XML, then they would use a regular suffix (e.g., application/
foo+ebml).
A.15. Why must I use the '+xml' suffix for my new XML-based media type?
You don't have to, but unless you have a good reason to explicitly
disallow generic XML processing, you should use the suffix so as not
to curtail the options of future users and developers.
Whether the inventors of a media type, today, design it for dispatch
to generic XML processing machinery (and most won't) is not the
critical issue. The core notion is that the knowledge that some
media type happens to use XML syntax opens the door to unanticipated
kinds of processing beyond those envisioned by its inventors, and on
this basis identifying such encoding is a good and useful thing.
Developers of new media types are often tightly focused on a
particular type of processing that meets current needs. But there is
no need to rule out generic processing as well, which could make your
media type more valuable over time. It is believed that registering
with the '+xml' suffix will cause no interoperability problems
whatsoever, while it may enable significant new functionality and
interoperability now and in the future. So, the conservative
approach is to include the '+xml' suffix.
A.16. Why not redefine text/xml instead of deprecating it
Since many XML processors do not follow RFC 3023 (they treat the xml
encoding declaration as authoritative) it has been suggested that
text/xml be redefined to follow the same behavior as application/xml
in this specification. However, this pragmatic solution would not be
compatible with the definition of the text/* type for non-HTTP
transports.
Appendix B. Changes from RFC 3023
There are numerous and significant differences between this
specification and [RFC3023], which it obsoletes. This appendix
summarizes the major differences only.
First, text/xml and text/xml-external-parsed-entity are deprecated.
Second, XPointer ([XPointerFramework] and [XPointerElement] and
[XPointerXmlns]) has been added as fragment identifier syntax for
"application/xml", and the XPointer Registry ([XPtrReg]) mentioned.
Third, [XBase] has been added as a mechanism for specifying base
URIs. Fourth, the language regarding charsets was updated to
correspond to the W3C TAG finding Internet Media Type registration,
consistency of use [TAGMIME]. Fifth, many references are updated.
Appendix C. Acknowledgements
This document reflects the input of numerous participants to the
ietf-xml-mime@imc.org mailing list, though any errors are the
responsibility of the authors. Special thanks to:
Mark Baker, James Clark, Dan Connolly, Martin Duerst, Ned Freed,
Yaron Goland, Rick Jelliffe, Larry Masinter, David Megginson, Keith
Moore, Chris Newman, Gavin Nicol, Marshall Rose, Jim Whitehead and
participants of the XML activity at the W3C.
Jim Whitehead and Simon St.Laurent are editors of [RFC2376] and
[RFC3023], respectively.
Authors' Addresses
MURATA Makoto (FAMILY Given)
IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory
1623-14, Shimotsuruma
Yamato-shi, Kanagawa-ken 242-8502
Japan
Phone: +81-46-215-4678
Email: eb2m-mrt@asahi-net.or.jp
Dan Kohn
skymoon ventures
3045 Park Boulevard
Palo Alto, California 94306
USA
Phone: +1-650-327-2600
Email: dan@dankohn.com
URI: http://www.dankohn.com/
Chris Lilley
World Wide Web Consortium
2004, Route des Lucioles - B.P. 93 06902
Sophia Antipolis Cedex
France
Email: chris@w3.org
URI: http://www.w3.org/People/chris/
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