LID 2.0 Format Negotiation Service

From LID Wiki

Contents 1 Overview 2 Requesting a response in a particular format 3 Requesting the list of possible response formats 4 Example

Overview

A LID URL that supports the LID 2.0 Format Negotiation Service supports format negotiation using the lid-format parameter, as well as the lid-meta=formats request.

The response to any query defined by the LID 2.0 Format Negotiation Service may depend on the identity of the LID Client, which can be authenticated using the LID Relying Party Profile.

Requesting a response in a particular format

The value of the lid-format parameter is initially defined as consisting of one of:

• the prefix mime:, followed by any valid mime type (without spaces).
• the value redirect

Specifying this parameter with the mime prefix asks the LID Server to respond with a document of the particular MIME type. If the LID Server cannot satisfy the particular requested MIME type with a best effort, it may respond in an alternate MIME type. The use of common internet MIME types (e.g. HTML, text, GIF, etc.) is encouraged.

When the parameter has the value redirect, it asks the LID Server to respond with an HTML redirect to a new location, which has authoritative information corresponding to the request. For example, if the result of the request is an e-mail address, requesting a redirect requests the LID Server to redirect to the mailto URL.

Requesting the list of possible response formats

The response to the lid-meta=formats request is TBD. Some format such as:

<formats>
 <mime>text/html</mime>
 <mime>text/xml</mime>
 ...
</formats>

Example

The request

LID?xpath=/VCARD/N/GIVEN&lid-format=mime:text/html

(which also uses the LID 2.0 Traversal Profile and the LID 2.0 VCard Profile) indicates that the LID Client wishes to obtain the first, given name of the owner of the LID URL, in HTML format.

The LID 2.0 Format Negotiation Service does not support the notion of a Yadis Service URI.