[DDI-users] File Extension

[Mark R. Diggory]

I think file extensions are far too OS/ Mimetype specific in nature. I 
see other Specifications use them (ie .svg .wml .xhtml .html) in some 
cases these are artifacts of older architectures (.xhtml .html) 
sometimes based on decisions by implementors (.svg .wml).

When specifically is is benifical to assign a special extension to an 
xml document? Often in most cases I think extensions are 
competing/complementing with mimetypes for use in Browser Recognition or 
OS competition.

For example what will the browser do with a xml file? In the case of 
xml, IE/Mozilla will attempt to render it using a provided stylesheet. 
If you create your own extension then will this default behavior 
continue to work? Or does the Browser rely in metetime features to 
determine file type?  As well, we can see that extensions such as xhtml, 
html, wml and svg have specific behaviors within the browser/file system 
that associated with them.

I personally wouldn't reley on the file extension to determine the type 
of the file. Extensions are only standard in file names for specif OS's 
/ Browsers.

Question: Would one be required to always save thier DDI xml files under 
the extesion .ddi in your suggestion? Or is it optional? How would it be 
enforced over time. How could one transition from .xml to .ddi 
gracefully? Also, extensions are also oftern associated with mimetypes. 
Is it also a proposition to define a ddi mimetype?

-Mark Diggory
Harvard MIT Data Center

Matthew A. Richardson wrote:

> Hmmm...what would this really describe, though?
>
> DDI currently relates to four different types of documents: xml 
> documents coded using DDI standards (.xml), as expressed in DDI DTDs 
> (.dtd) or DDI schema (.xsd), as well as xml stylesheets (.xsl) written 
> to express DDI-coded documents.
>
> --On Friday, August 23, 2002 06:55 PM +0200 Sigbjorn Revheim 
> <Sigbjorn.Revheim@nsd.uib.no> wrote:
>
>> Currently people use XML as file extension for their DDI documents, but
>> the fact that the DDI uses XML doesn't mean that it has to use XML as it
>> file extension. The hole purpose of file extensions is to easier
>> differentiate files of different types, and XML files using different
>> DTDs are of different type.
>>
>> So my suggestion is that the DDI committee should come up with an
>> official recommendation for file extension. The most obvious would be to
>> use .DDI
>>
>> What do others think?
>>
>> Sigbjoern
>>
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>
>
> Matthew A. Richardson
> Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research
> Phone: 734.998.9842
> Email: matvey@umich.edu
> "Everything tires with time, and starts to seek some opposition,
> to save it from itself." --Clive Barker, The Hellbound Heart
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