File Formats Blog

A great mime, such as the late Marcel Marceau, can make people cry. But can MIME types do the same? Perhaps, as I discovered when digging through some information while discussing what the type for BigTIFF should be. The registry of MIME types doesn't always conform to the high standards you might expect from IANA.

For instance, the listing for "application/postscript" has references to RFC 2045 and RFC 2046. This would be very nice, except that the first mentions PostScript only in passing, and the second references phantom footnotes: "Currently two variants of the PostScript language are allowed; the original level 1 variant is described in [POSTSCRIPT] and the more recent level 2 variant is described in [POSTSCRIPT2]." Those words in brackets refer neither to links nor to footnotes.

But the reference for "application/msword" really makes me want to cry:

PUBLISHED SPECIFICATION:
 
Specification by example:  
From any microsoft word application select "Save As..." from the "File" menu. Enter a filename, make sure that "Normal" is specified for the file type, and click "Save".

Ah, well. Somehow the Internet keeps clunking along.

Labels: IANA

# posted by Gary McGath @ 9:07 AM