NOTE: The galeon mailing list is no longer active. The list archives are made available for historical reasons.
Hi, I tend to think that a single MIME type for NetCDF would be appropriate. In practice there tends to be a 1:1 mapping of file extension to MIME type. There's no theoretical reason why this should be the case, but it's common practice in web server configuration to associate a file extension with a single MIME type. All Microsoft Word documents (.doc) pre-2007 share the same MIME type, even though older versions of Word won't correctly read a .doc from later versions. The change to .docx generated a new MIME type, but this was a radical format change from binary to XML - the change from NetCDF3 to NetCDF4 is not so radical I think and maybe should not spawn a new extension or MIME type. However I can see the contrary point of view - lots of people at the moment only have NetCDF-3 aware tools as they wait for upstream software vendors to upgrade. These people might want to distinguish between versions (and probably don't want to download a large file only to find they can't read it). But surely this problem will go away in a couple of years. I think the simplest solution (single extension, single MIME type) is probably best, unless there are compelling use cases to make things more complicated. HTH, Jon From: galeon-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:galeon-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Ben Domenico Sent: 20 October 2011 15:57 To: Little, Chris Cc: Simon Elliott; galeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; CF-NetCDF-1.0.SWG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Ross, Gil; Tandy, Jeremy Subject: Re: [galeon] [CF-NetCDF-1.0.swg] CF-netCDF SWG Session Summary:Sept 2011 TC Meeting Hi all, Can someone describe a scenario where having the version information (e.g., netcdf3 or netcdf4) somewhere in the mime type would make a difference for a client? If one is using the latest netCDF libraries, they should be able to deal with either. If one has an older client using an older version of the library, then presumably the client application would not be aware of mime-types and would not know what netcdf4 means anysay. If the client is doing a protocol negotiation, e.g., WCS, it would seem that the describeCoverage interaction would be where the netcdf3 - netcdf4 distinction would be important so the client would know whether it really wants to do the getCoverage at all. I'm struggling a bit to visualize a use case where the client would make use of the version information in the mime-type. -- Ben On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 7:32 AM, Little, Chris <chris.little@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:chris.little@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote: Dear Ben, Dominic, There was a similar discussion in the WMO format group (IPET-DRC) with Simon Elliott, EUMETSAT, concerning the WMO file naming convention. We took the approach that the format should be specified as just NetCDF (actually 'nc') rather than nc3 or nc4; GRIB (grb) rather than grb1 or grb2; BUFR (bfr) rather than bfr1,2,3,4.... The argument was that current (monolithic) applications 'know' what version of a format they support and can behave appropriately. The suggestion for separate Mime types, rather than a single parameterised type, makes sense when the majority of applications are Mime aware and are programmed to do the correct negotiation at the HTTP level, rather than within their application environment. HTH, Chris Chris Little OGC Meteorology & Oceanography Domain Working Group International Telecoms & Projects Met Office FitzRoy Road Exeter Devon EX1 3PB United Kingdom Tel: +44(0)1392 886278<tel:%2B44%280%291392%20886278> Fax: +44(0)1392 885681<tel:%2B44%280%291392%20885681> Mobile: +44(0)7753 880514<tel:%2B44%280%297753%20880514> E-mail: chris.little@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:chris.little@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> http://www.metoffice.gov.uk -----Original Message----- From: cf-netcdf-1.0.swg-bounces+chris.little=metoffice.gov.uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:metoffice.gov.uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> [mailto:cf-netcdf-1.0.swg-bounces+chris.little<mailto:cf-netcdf-1.0.swg-bounces%2Bchris.little>=metoffice.gov.uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:metoffice.gov.uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>] On Behalf Of Dominic Lowe Sent: 14 October 2011 09:55 To: galeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:galeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>; CF-NetCDF-1.0.SWG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:CF-NetCDF-1.0.SWG@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: [CF-NetCDF-1.0.swg] [galeon] CF-netCDF SWG Session Summary:Sept 2011 TC Meeting Hi all, On 13/10/11 18:06, jgallagher@xxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:jgallagher@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > +1 for x-netcdf with an optional conventions attribute Just to note that the x- prefix is for mimetypes that are not registered with IANA. So if we are talking about what to register we should be talking about application/netcdf or application/netcdf-3 (or 4) without the x-. My preference would be to make a distinction between NetCDF3 and NetCDF4 filetypes as they require different tools to read them (or at least the tools must be linked to different libraries). Some clients might wish to express a preference in the HTTP Accept header about which format they get back for a particular resource (if there is an option). You could extend this argument to the conventions but that might be getting impractical - I agree with the use of optional parameters there, although not sure how much they are used in practice for mime-type negotiation? Regards, Dom -- Scanned by iCritical. _______________________________________________ CF-NetCDF-1.0.swg mailing list CF-NetCDF-1.0.swg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:CF-NetCDF-1.0.swg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> https://lists.opengeospatial.org/mailman/listinfo/cf-netcdf-1.0.swg _______________________________________________ galeon mailing list galeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:galeon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> For list information, to unsubscribe, visit: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/mailing_lists/
galeon archives: