is still "us-ascii".

      Since the charset parameter is authoritative, the charset is not
      always declared within an XML encoding declaration.  Thus, special
      care is needed when the recipient strips the MIME header and
      provides persistent storage of the received XML entity (e.g., in a
      file system). Unless the charset is UTF-8 or UTF-16, the recipient
      SHOULD also persistently store information about the charset,
      perhaps by embedding a correct XML encoding declaration within the
      XML entity.

   Encoding considerations:

      This media type MAY be encoded as appropriate for the charset and
      the capabilities of the underlying MIME transport. For 7-bit
      transports, data in both UTF-8 and UTF-16 is encoded in quoted-
      printable or base64.  For 8-bit clean transport (e.g., ESMTP,
      8BITMIME, or NNTP), UTF-8 is not encoded, but UTF-16 is base64
      encoded.  For binary clean transports (e.g., HTTP), no content-
      transfer-encoding is necessary.






 
RFC 2376                    XML Media Types                    July 1998


   Security considerations:

      See section 4 below.

   Interoperability considerations:

      XML has proven to be interoperable across WebDAV clients and
      servers, and for import and export from multiple XML authoring
      tools.

   Published specification: see [REC-XML]

   Applications which use this media type:

      XML is device-, platform-, and vendor-neutral and is supported by
      a wide range of Web user agents, WebDAV clients and servers, as
      well as XML authoring tools.

   Additional information:

      Magic number(s): none

      Although no byte sequences can be counted on to always be present,
      XML entities in ASCII-compatible charsets (including UTF-8) often
      begin with hexadecimal 3C 3F 78 6D 6C ("<?xml").  For more
      information, see Appendix F of [REC-XML].

      File extension(s): .xml, .dtd
      Macintosh File Type Code(s): "TEXT"

   Person & email address for further information:

      Dan Connolly <connolly@w3.org>
      Murata Makoto (Family Given) <murata@fxis.fujixerox.co.jp>

   Intended usage: COMMON

   Author/Change controller:

      The XML specification is a work product of the World Wide Web
      Consortium's XML Working Group, and was edited by:

      Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>
      Jean Paoli <jeanpa@microsoft.com>
      C. M. Sperberg-McQueen <cmsmcq@uic.edu>

      The W3C, and the W3C XML working group, has change control over
      the XML specification.




 
RFC 2376                    XML Media Types                    July 1998


3.2 Application/xml Registration

   MIME media type name: application

   MIME subtype name: xml

   Mandatory parameters: none

   Optional parameters: charset

      Although listed as an optional parameter, the use of the charset
      parameter is STRONGLY RECOMMENDED, since this information can be
      used by XML processors to determine authoritatively the charset of
      the XML entity. The charset parameter can also be used to provide