IPP Mail Archive: IPP> I-D Guidelines for XML in IETF Protoc

IPP> I-D Guidelines for XML in IETF Protocols

From: McDonald, Ira (imcdonald@sharplabs.com)
Date: Mon May 06 2002 - 17:25:53 EDT

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    Hi folks,

    RECOMMENDED reading For anyone interested in XML-based protocols
    - Bob Herriot, Dave Hall, Kirk Ocke, and other PWG editors.

    In the IETF repository 'ftp://ftp.ietf.org/internet-drafts/' see:

    "Guidelines for the Use of XML within IETF Protocols",
    by Scott Hollenbeck (VeriSign), Marshall Rose (Dover Beach),
    Larry Masinter (Adobe).
    <draft-hollenbeck-ietf-xml-guidelines-02.txt> (29 April 2002)

    As noted below, this document is intended to become an IETF BCP
    (Best Current Practice) RFC.

    Cheers,
    - Ira McDonald
      High North Inc

    ----------------------------------------

    Abstract

       The Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a framework for structuring
       data. While it evolved from SGML -- a markup language primarily
       focused on structuring documents -- XML has evolved to be a widely-
       used mechanism for representing structured data.
       There are a wide variety of Internet protocols being developed; many
       have need for a representation for structured data relevant to their
       application. There has been much interest in the use of XML as a
       representation method. This document describes basic XML concepts,
       analyzes various alternatives in the use of XML, and provides
       guidelines for the use of XML within IETF standards-track protocols.

    Intended Publication Status

       It is the goal of the authors that this draft (when completed and
       then approved by the IESG) be published as a Best Current Practice
       (BCP).

    Conventions Used In This Document

       This document recommends, as policy, what specifications for Internet
       protocols -- and, in particular, IETF standards track protocol
       documents -- should include as normative language within them. The
       capitalized keywords "SHOULD", "MUST", "REQUIRED", etc. are used in
       the sense of how they would be used within other documents with the
       meanings as specified in RFC 2119 [1].

    ----------------------------------------
    Table of Contents

       1. Introduction and Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
       1.1 Intended Audience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
       1.2 Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
       1.3 XML Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
       1.4 XML Users, Support Groups, and Additional Information . . . 5
       2. XML Selection Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
       3. XML Alternatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
       4. XML Use Considerations and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . 10
       4.1 XML Declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       4.2 XML Processing Instructions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
       4.3 Well-Formedness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       4.4 Validity and Extensibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
       4.5 Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
       4.5.1 Namespaces and Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       4.6 Element and Attribute Design Considerations . . . . . . . . 13
       4.7 Binary Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
       4.8 Incremental Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
       5. Internationalization Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       5.1 Character Sets and Encodings: UTF-8 and UTF-16 . . . . . . . 16
       5.2 Language Declaration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       5.3 Other Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
       6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
       8. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
             Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
             Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
             Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
       A. Appendix A: Change History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
             Full Copyright Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28



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