Organisation of data

[ioquatix]

Some mime types come from IANA, right?

Is there some way to have separate data sources based on different orgs, e.g. IANA, Apache, Unofficial, etc.

Does that even make sense?

[halostatue]

The primary sources are Apache, IANA, and user contributions. I do not think that it makes sense to separate these in terms of the data organization here—given the primary data use, as there is generally enough information to post-process the data into separate groups as needed. However, the IANA generally doesn’t include extensions, so if they are needed, they will (almost) always be user-contributed.

[ioquatix]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I was surprised that IANA don't list extensions. I sort of understand why, but it also seems like it would be really useful.

[halostatue]

You might be able to get it from individual RFCs that most IANA things are based on, but…obtaining that information would mean parsing the text of the RFCs. :/

[ioquatix]

Yeah, that's crazy talk :p

[halostatue]

There are potentially some things that can be obtained from individual records in the parsing. application/javascript has the following block embedded:

Additional information:

   Magic number(s):             n/a
   File extension(s):           .js
   Macintosh File Type Code(s): TEXT

It’s not structured, but it may be possible for some types. However, image/png doesn’t have similar information…which makes it ugly. Therefore, I generally try to parse from the information that is guaranteed to be present (plus, downloading each of those individual items would start being unkind to IANA servers).

[ioquatix]

Have you considered proposing to IANA that they maintain a list of canonical file extensions?

[halostatue]

I haven’t; it’s probably not a bad idea, but I’m not sure how I’d start that particular discussion.

[ioquatix]

I looked, they do capture file extension on their submission form, so perhaps they are thinking about it, or perhaps they do publish it, but not on that page? I've emailed them.

[ioquatix]

Hi Samuel,

We don't have a date yet, but a column that presents the file extensions listed in the registration template will be added to the media type registry.

Best regards,

Amanda Baber
Lead IANA Services Specialist
PTI

[halostatue]

They still haven’t added an extensions column yet.