Re: Latest DRAFT of SMTP bindings

[Prasad Yendluri <pyendluri@webmethods.com>]

christopher ferris wrote:

> The encoding discussion we had on the SOAP call had nothing
> to do with SOAP encoding at the element level. We were discussing
> in the context of SMTP binding and use of Content-Transfer-Encoding
> (a very different thing) so that certain MTA hops that could NOT
> deal with 8 bit data (very few these days) could be leveraged
> for purposes of transferring ebXML messages.
>
> The discussion concluded that the MSH need NOT concern itself with
> this since it is supposed to be transport neutral. The transport
> (e.g. the MTA) would deal with this as needed by encoding the WHOLE
> message package.

Chris,

May be I am not understanding what you are suggesting but, we can not do
Content-Transfer-Encoding at the top level (multipart/related) level.

If an entity is of type "multipart" or "message", the Content-Transfer- Encoding
is not permitted to have any value other than a bit width
(e.g., "7bit", "8bit", etc.) or "binary".

Hence if an encoding such as Base64 can only be used at the leaf parts level. I
don't think MTAs can do this. This needs to be done by the MUA. This does not
mean the MSH needs to do it though. The application entity that knows that the
message could take paths that can not handle 8-bit/binary data should do this.
That means this needs to be done prior to giving the message to MSH.


> As for SOAP-Action, the discussion was that it was up to the
> two parties to determine what value should be used, that ebXML
> would make NO claim as to a required value for SOAP-Action.

The difficulty was, we never got the issues list sent to us. So, this is what
Dick and I thought was good to have for SOAP-Action. However, an alternate is to
have no value (like BizTalk). This header still needs to be present however, as
it is required by the SOAP specification.

My 2 cents.

Regards, Prasad

>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
> Dick Brooks wrote:
> >
> > Chris,
> >
> > > I thought that we discussed the issue of Content-Transfer-Encoding
> > > and agreed that it would apply at the transport level, not the MSH
> > > level and apply to the entire ebXML Message (the Message Package)
> > > not just selected body parts.
> >
> > My recollection of the discussion was whether to encode at the
> > element level (using SOAP encoding specified in chapter 5, SOAP-ENC:base64)
> > or the body part level. My meeting notes indicate that we agreed to encode
> > at the body part level only those body parts that require encoding.
> >
> > >
> > > In addition, I thought that the issue of SOAP-Action was to be
> > > something agreed by the parties, that we would NOT impose a
> > > value for SOAP-Action.
> > >
> >
> > My understanding is that SOAP-Action would be used for dispatching purposes
> > as a substitute for the MIME "type" parameter, which now contains a
> > generic "text/xml" identifier.
> >
> > Dick Brooks
> > Group 8760
> > 110 12th Street North
> > Birmingham, AL 35203
> > dick@8760.com
> > 205-250-8053
> > Fax: 205-250-8057
> > http://www.8760.com/
> >
> > InsideAgent - Empowering e-commerce solutions
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: christopher ferris [mailto:chris.ferris@east.sun.com]
> > > Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 10:20 AM
> > > To: Dick Brooks
> > > Cc: Ebxml
> > > Subject: Re: Latest DRAFT of SMTP bindings
> > >
> > >
> > > Dick,
> > >
> > > I thought that we discussed the issue of Content-Transfer-Encoding
> > > and agreed that it would apply at the transport level, not the MSH
> > > level and apply to the entire ebXML Message (the Message Package)
> > > not just selected body parts.
> > >
> > > In addition, I thought that the issue of SOAP-Action was to be
> > > something agreed by the parties, that we would NOT impose a
> > > value for SOAP-Action.
> > >
> > > Other than these comments, looks good!
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > >
> > > Chris
> > >
> > > Dick Brooks wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Here is what Prasad and I came up with for SMTP bindings, let
> > > us know what
> > > > you think.
> > > >
> > > > I don't have a pdf creator so I'm providing the MS word
> > > version. Maybe one
> > > > of those kind individuals (maw?)
> > > > with a pdf converter will redistribute a pdf version of the doc.
> > > >
> > > > Thanks,
> > > >
> > > > Dick Brooks
> > > > Group 8760
> > > > 110 12th Street North
> > > > Birmingham, AL 35203
> > > > dick@8760.com
> > > > 205-250-8053
> > > > Fax: 205-250-8057
> > > > http://www.8760.com/
> > > >
> > > > InsideAgent - Empowering e-commerce solutions
> > > >
> > > >
> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > >                                       Name:
> > > ebXMLTransportBindings-SMTP.doc
> > > >    ebXMLTransportBindings-SMTP.doc    Type: Winword File
> > > (application/msword)
> > > >                                   Encoding: BASE64