Subject: Is there a need for a standard general XML format for describing computer files?

From: Trace Bond <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2007 19:27:10 -0400

Dear folk,
For the past two years I've been casually searching for an XML format for
describing computer files that I could use for creating catalogs of files
for backup purposes.
Such a format seems to me to be a very important tool for making,
duplicating and sharing vendor-independent file systems, as well as
cataloging.
The child-elements/attributes of such a "file" element might be "name",
"description", "MIME-Content-Type", "size-in-bytes", "access-permissions",
"date-created", "date-modified", etc. A companion XML format for describing
folder/directory trees would enable the description of complete file
systems.

There already exist several models/precursors for this XML format and I'll
quickly discuss them.
Historically, MIME has provided Internet file description. Although its
syntax is archaic, its "Content-Type" enumeration is useful and other of its
fields could be carried over to XML elements/attributes.
Eric Burger pointed out that MIME and its 'external-body' provide a very
compact way to describe files, although I feel that XML's elegance make up
for its extra syntax. He wondered whether someone had already done a general
file description XML format. My search continued.

Magnus Westerlund drew my attention to FLUTE/RFC3926's file description
format which uses MIME field names as XML attributes (eg: "Content-Type")
although it uses "Content-Length" instead of MIME's "Size". But he seemed to
warn that this format could not be applied generally.
Miguel Garcia and Marcin Matuszewski in the SIPPING group have designed a
'file-metadata' XML format published at
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-garcia-sipping-file-event-package-
00.txt. Eric Burger warned that this design was very SIP-specific.  However,
could it or FLUTE/RFC3926 possibly be the foundation for a more general
design/format?

The SemanticWeb is slightly over my head, but I believe that the
DublinCore/RDF is aimed at describing the general document/media-resource..
it therefore seems vague when describing the computer file (for instance,
its element "extent" can contain the size-in-bytes or duration of a
resource).  However, could DublinCore/RDF possibly be that foundation?

So we seem to have formats that are either too specialized or too general. I
wonder whether it is possible or useful to design a general file description
XML format. Does it already exist? Or should I design a personal format for
the singular needs of a file backup program?

Trace Bond
Vancouver, Canada

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