From: jose.kahan@w3.org
Date: Wed Sep 01 1999 - 12:21:37 CDT
I'd like to know if folks would be interested in having this feature
inside hypermail.
One of the problems with the MIME attachments is how to make the
web server send back their content type.
One solution could be to add a file extension, but that extension is
server dependent.
Another solution is to use meta-data to store the Content-Type header
associated with each MIME attachment.
What I do is that in the attachment directory (say attach/num/), I create
another subdir called .meta. I store attachment att-name in
attach/num/att-name and its meta information in attach/num/.meta/att-name.
The meta information is the value of the Content-Type header as specified
in the MIME header.
When a user browses an attachment, the http server includes the headers found
in the meta file (Content-Type) and sends the attachment to the user.
What's nice here is that I don't have to modify the filename or invent new
extensions when we get new attachment types.
I implemented this version on my working version of hypermail and am
succesfully using it against Apache (which supports metadata files).
I'm unaware if other web servers, besides Apache and CERN (obsolete)
support metadata.
Thanks,
-Jose