rfc4287
Network Working Group M. Nottingham, Ed.
Request for Comments: 4287 R. Sayre, Ed.
Category: Standards Track December 2005
The Atom Syndication Format
Status of This Memo
This document specifies an Internet standards track protocol for the
Internet community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
improvements. Please refer to the current edition of the "Internet
Official Protocol Standards" (STD 1) for the standardization state
and status of this protocol. Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
Abstract
This document specifies Atom, an XML-based Web content and metadata
syndication format.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction ....................................................3
1.1. Examples ...................................................3
1.2. Namespace and Version ......................................5
1.3. Notational Conventions .....................................5
2. Atom Documents ..................................................6
3. Common Atom Constructs ..........................................7
3.1. Text Constructs ............................................7
3.1.1. The "type" Attribute ................................8
3.2. Person Constructs .........................................10
3.2.1. The "atom:name" Element ............................10
3.2.2. The "atom:uri" Element .............................10
3.2.3. The "atom:email" Element ...........................10
3.3. Date Constructs ...........................................10
4. Atom Element Definitions .......................................11
4.1. Container Elements ........................................11
4.1.1. The "atom:feed" Element ............................11
4.1.2. The "atom:entry" Element ...........................13
4.1.3. The "atom:content" Element .........................14
4.2. Metadata Elements .........................................17
4.2.1. The "atom:author" Element ..........................17
4.2.2. The "atom:category" Element ........................18
4.2.3. The "atom:contributor" Element .....................18
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 1]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
4.2.4. The "atom:generator" Element .......................18
4.2.5. The "atom:icon" Element ............................19
4.2.6. The "atom:id" Element ..............................19
4.2.7. The "atom:link" Element ............................21
4.2.8. The "atom:logo" Element ............................23
4.2.9. The "atom:published" Element .......................23
4.2.10. The "atom:rights" Element .........................24
4.2.11. The "atom:source" Element .........................24
4.2.12. The "atom:subtitle" Element .......................25
4.2.13. The "atom:summary" Element ........................25
4.2.14. The "atom:title" Element ..........................25
4.2.15. The "atom:updated" Element ........................25
5. Securing Atom Documents ........................................26
5.1. Digital Signatures ........................................26
5.2. Encryption ................................................27
5.3. Signing and Encrypting ....................................28
6. Extending Atom .................................................28
6.1. Extensions from Non-Atom Vocabularies .....................28
6.2. Extensions to the Atom Vocabulary .........................28
6.3. Processing Foreign Markup .................................28
6.4. Extension Elements ........................................29
6.4.1. Simple Extension Elements ..........................29
6.4.2. Structured Extension Elements ......................29
7. IANA Considerations ............................................30
7.1. Registry of Link Relations ................................31
8. Security Considerations ........................................31
8.1. HTML and XHTML Content ....................................31
8.2. URIs ......................................................31
8.3. IRIs ......................................................31
8.4. Spoofing ..................................................31
8.5. Encryption and Signing ....................................32
9. References .....................................................32
9.1. Normative References ......................................32
9.2. Informative References ....................................34
Appendix A. Contributors ..........................................35
Appendix B. RELAX NG Compact Schema ...............................35
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 2]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
1. Introduction
Atom is an XML-based document format that describes lists of related
information known as "feeds". Feeds are composed of a number of
items, known as "entries", each with an extensible set of attached
metadata. For example, each entry has a title.
The primary use case that Atom addresses is the syndication of Web
content such as weblogs and news headlines to Web sites as well as
directly to user agents.
1.1. Examples
A brief, single-entry Atom Feed Document:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<title>Example Feed</title>
<link href="http://example.org/"/>
<updated>2003-12-13T18:30:02Z</updated>
<author>
<name>John Doe</name>
</author>
<id>urn:uuid:60a76c80-d399-11d9-b93C-0003939e0af6</id>
<entry>
<title>Atom-Powered Robots Run Amok</title>
<link href="http://example.org/2003/12/13/atom03"/>
<id>urn:uuid:1225c695-cfb8-4ebb-aaaa-80da344efa6a</id>
<updated>2003-12-13T18:30:02Z</updated>
<summary>Some text.</summary>
</entry>
</feed>
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 3]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
A more extensive, single-entry Atom Feed Document:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
<title type="text">dive into mark</title>
<subtitle type="html">
A <em>lot</em> of effort
went into making this effortless
</subtitle>
<updated>2005-07-31T12:29:29Z</updated>
<id>tag:example.org,2003:3</id>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
hreflang="en" href="http://example.org/"/>
<link rel="self" type="application/atom+xml"
href="http://example.org/feed.atom"/>
<rights>Copyright (c) 2003, Mark Pilgrim</rights>
<generator uri="http://www.example.com/" version="1.0">
Example Toolkit
</generator>
<entry>
<title>Atom draft-07 snapshot</title>
<link rel="alternate" type="text/html"
href="http://example.org/2005/04/02/atom"/>
<link rel="enclosure" type="audio/mpeg" length="1337"
href="http://example.org/audio/ph34r_my_podcast.mp3"/>
<id>tag:example.org,2003:3.2397</id>
<updated>2005-07-31T12:29:29Z</updated>
<published>2003-12-13T08:29:29-04:00</published>
<author>
<name>Mark Pilgrim</name>
<uri>http://example.org/</uri>
<email>f8dy@example.com</email>
</author>
<contributor>
<name>Sam Ruby</name>
</contributor>
<contributor>
<name>Joe Gregorio</name>
</contributor>
<content type="xhtml" xml:lang="en"
xml:base="http://diveintomark.org/">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<p><i>[Update: The Atom draft is finished.]</i></p>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
</feed>
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 4]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
1.2. Namespace and Version
The XML Namespaces URI [W3C.REC-xml-names-19990114] for the XML data
format described in this specification is:
http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom
For convenience, this data format may be referred to as "Atom 1.0".
This specification uses "Atom" internally.
1.3. Notational Conventions
This specification describes conformance in terms of two artifacts:
Atom Feed Documents and Atom Entry Documents. Additionally, it
places some requirements on Atom Processors.
This specification uses the namespace prefix "atom:" for the
Namespace URI identified in Section 1.2, above. Note that the choice
of namespace prefix is arbitrary and not semantically significant.
Atom is specified using terms from the XML Infoset
[W3C.REC-xml-infoset-20040204]. However, this specification uses a
shorthand for two common terms: the phrase "Information Item" is
omitted when naming Element Information Items and Attribute
Information Items. Therefore, when this specification uses the term
"element," it is referring to an Element Information Item in Infoset
terms. Likewise, when it uses the term "attribute," it is referring
to an Attribute Information Item.
Some sections of this specification are illustrated with fragments of
a non-normative RELAX NG Compact schema [RELAX-NG]. However, the
text of this specification provides the definition of conformance. A
complete schema appears in Appendix B.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14, [RFC2119], as
scoped to those conformance targets.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 5]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
2. Atom Documents
This specification describes two kinds of Atom Documents: Atom Feed
Documents and Atom Entry Documents.
An Atom Feed Document is a representation of an Atom feed, including
metadata about the feed, and some or all of the entries associated
with it. Its root is the atom:feed element.
An Atom Entry Document represents exactly one Atom entry, outside of
the context of an Atom feed. Its root is the atom:entry element.
namespace atom = "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
start = atomFeed | atomEntry
Both kinds of Atom Documents are specified in terms of the XML
Information Set, serialized as XML 1.0 [W3C.REC-xml-20040204] and
identified with the "application/atom+xml" media type. Atom
Documents MUST be well-formed XML. This specification does not
define a DTD for Atom Documents, and hence does not require them to
be valid (in the sense used by XML).
Atom allows the use of IRIs [RFC3987]. Every URI [RFC3986] is also
an IRI, so a URI may be used wherever below an IRI is named. There
are two special considerations: (1) when an IRI that is not also a
URI is given for dereferencing, it MUST be mapped to a URI using the
steps in Section 3.1 of [RFC3987] and (2) when an IRI is serving as
an atom:id value, it MUST NOT be so mapped, so that the comparison
works as described in Section 4.2.6.1.
Any element defined by this specification MAY have an xml:base
attribute [W3C.REC-xmlbase-20010627]. When xml:base is used in an
Atom Document, it serves the function described in section 5.1.1 of
[RFC3986], establishing the base URI (or IRI) for resolving any
relative references found within the effective scope of the xml:base
attribute.
Any element defined by this specification MAY have an xml:lang
attribute, whose content indicates the natural language for the
element and its descendents. The language context is only
significant for elements and attributes declared to be "Language-
Sensitive" by this specification. Requirements regarding the content
and interpretation of xml:lang are specified in XML 1.0
[W3C.REC-xml-20040204], Section 2.12.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 6]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
atomCommonAttributes =
attribute xml:base { atomUri }?,
attribute xml:lang { atomLanguageTag }?,
undefinedAttribute*
Atom is an extensible format. See Section 6 of this document for a
full description of how Atom Documents can be extended.
Atom Processors MAY keep state sourced from Atom Feed Documents and
combine them with other Atom Feed Documents, in order to facilitate a
contiguous view of the contents of a feed. The manner in which Atom
Feed Documents are combined in order to reconstruct a feed (e.g.,
updating entries and metadata, dealing with missing entries) is out
of the scope of this specification.
3. Common Atom Constructs
Many of Atom's elements share a few common structures. This section
defines those structures and their requirements for convenient
reference by the appropriate element definitions.
When an element is identified as being a particular kind of
construct, it inherits the corresponding requirements from that
construct's definition in this section.
Note that there MUST NOT be any white space in a Date construct or in
any IRI. Some XML-emitting implementations erroneously insert white
space around values by default, and such implementations will emit
invalid Atom Documents.
3.1. Text Constructs
A Text construct contains human-readable text, usually in small
quantities. The content of Text constructs is Language-Sensitive.
atomPlainTextConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "text" | "html" }?,
text
atomXHTMLTextConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "xhtml" },
xhtmlDiv
atomTextConstruct = atomPlainTextConstruct | atomXHTMLTextConstruct
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 7]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
3.1.1. The "type" Attribute
Text constructs MAY have a "type" attribute. When present, the value
MUST be one of "text", "html", or "xhtml". If the "type" attribute
is not provided, Atom Processors MUST behave as though it were
present with a value of "text". Unlike the atom:content element
defined in Section 4.1.3, MIME media types [MIMEREG] MUST NOT be used
as values for the "type" attribute on Text constructs.
3.1.1.1. Text
Example atom:title with text content:
...
<title type="text">
Less: <
</title>
...
If the value is "text", the content of the Text construct MUST NOT
contain child elements. Such text is intended to be presented to
humans in a readable fashion. Thus, Atom Processors MAY collapse
white space (including line breaks) and display the text using
typographic techniques such as justification and proportional fonts.
3.1.1.2. HTML
Example atom:title with HTML content:
...
<title type="html">
Less: <em> &lt; </em>
</title>
...
If the value of "type" is "html", the content of the Text construct
MUST NOT contain child elements and SHOULD be suitable for handling
as HTML [HTML]. Any markup within MUST be escaped; for example,
"<br>" as "<br>". HTML markup within SHOULD be such that it could
validly appear directly within an HTML <DIV> element, after
unescaping. Atom Processors that display such content MAY use that
markup to aid in its display.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 8]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
3.1.1.3. XHTML
Example atom:title with XHTML content:
...
<title type="xhtml" xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<xhtml:div>
Less: <xhtml:em> < </xhtml:em>
</xhtml:div>
</title>
...
If the value of "type" is "xhtml", the content of the Text construct
MUST be a single XHTML div element [XHTML] and SHOULD be suitable for
handling as XHTML. The XHTML div element itself MUST NOT be
considered part of the content. Atom Processors that display the
content MAY use the markup to aid in displaying it. The escaped
versions of characters such as "&" and ">" represent those
characters, not markup.
Examples of valid XHTML content:
...
<summary type="xhtml">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
This is <b>XHTML</b> content.
</div>
</summary>
...
<summary type="xhtml">
<xhtml:div xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
This is <xhtml:b>XHTML</xhtml:b> content.
</xhtml:div>
</summary>
...
The following example assumes that the XHTML namespace has been bound
to the "xh" prefix earlier in the document:
...
<summary type="xhtml">
<xh:div>
This is <xh:b>XHTML</xh:b> content.
</xh:div>
</summary>
...
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 9]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
3.2. Person Constructs
A Person construct is an element that describes a person,
corporation, or similar entity (hereafter, 'person').
atomPersonConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
(element atom:name { text }
& element atom:uri { atomUri }?
& element atom:email { atomEmailAddress }?
& extensionElement*)
This specification assigns no significance to the order of appearance
of the child elements in a Person construct. Person constructs allow
extension Metadata elements (see Section 6.4).
3.2.1. The "atom:name" Element
The "atom:name" element's content conveys a human-readable name for
the person. The content of atom:name is Language-Sensitive. Person
constructs MUST contain exactly one "atom:name" element.
3.2.2. The "atom:uri" Element
The "atom:uri" element's content conveys an IRI associated with the
person. Person constructs MAY contain an atom:uri element, but MUST
NOT contain more than one. The content of atom:uri in a Person
construct MUST be an IRI reference [RFC3987].
3.2.3. The "atom:email" Element
The "atom:email" element's content conveys an e-mail address
associated with the person. Person constructs MAY contain an
atom:email element, but MUST NOT contain more than one. Its content
MUST conform to the "addr-spec" production in [RFC2822].
3.3. Date Constructs
A Date construct is an element whose content MUST conform to the
"date-time" production in [RFC3339]. In addition, an uppercase "T"
character MUST be used to separate date and time, and an uppercase
"Z" character MUST be present in the absence of a numeric time zone
offset.
atomDateConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
xsd:dateTime
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 10]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
Such date values happen to be compatible with the following
specifications: [ISO.8601.1988], [W3C.NOTE-datetime-19980827], and
[W3C.REC-xmlschema-2-20041028].
Example Date constructs:
<updated>2003-12-13T18:30:02Z</updated>
<updated>2003-12-13T18:30:02.25Z</updated>
<updated>2003-12-13T18:30:02+01:00</updated>
<updated>2003-12-13T18:30:02.25+01:00</updated>
Date values SHOULD be as accurate as possible. For example, it would
be generally inappropriate for a publishing system to apply the same
timestamp to several entries that were published during the course of
a single day.
4. Atom Element Definitions
4.1. Container Elements
4.1.1. The "atom:feed" Element
The "atom:feed" element is the document (i.e., top-level) element of
an Atom Feed Document, acting as a container for metadata and data
associated with the feed. Its element children consist of metadata
elements followed by zero or more atom:entry child elements.
atomFeed =
element atom:feed {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomAuthor*
& atomCategory*
& atomContributor*
& atomGenerator?
& atomIcon?
& atomId
& atomLink*
& atomLogo?
& atomRights?
& atomSubtitle?
& atomTitle
& atomUpdated
& extensionElement*),
atomEntry*
}
This specification assigns no significance to the order of atom:entry
elements within the feed.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 11]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
The following child elements are defined by this specification (note
that the presence of some of these elements is required):
o atom:feed elements MUST contain one or more atom:author elements,
unless all of the atom:feed element's child atom:entry elements
contain at least one atom:author element.
o atom:feed elements MAY contain any number of atom:category
elements.
o atom:feed elements MAY contain any number of atom:contributor
elements.
o atom:feed elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:generator
element.
o atom:feed elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:icon
element.
o atom:feed elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:logo
element.
o atom:feed elements MUST contain exactly one atom:id element.
o atom:feed elements SHOULD contain one atom:link element with a rel
attribute value of "self". This is the preferred URI for
retrieving Atom Feed Documents representing this Atom feed.
o atom:feed elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:link
element with a rel attribute value of "alternate" that has the
same combination of type and hreflang attribute values.
o atom:feed elements MAY contain additional atom:link elements
beyond those described above.
o atom:feed elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:rights
element.
o atom:feed elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:subtitle
element.
o atom:feed elements MUST contain exactly one atom:title element.
o atom:feed elements MUST contain exactly one atom:updated element.
If multiple atom:entry elements with the same atom:id value appear in
an Atom Feed Document, they represent the same entry. Their
atom:updated timestamps SHOULD be different. If an Atom Feed
Document contains multiple entries with the same atom:id, Atom
Processors MAY choose to display all of them or some subset of them.
One typical behavior would be to display only the entry with the
latest atom:updated timestamp.
4.1.1.1. Providing Textual Content
Experience teaches that feeds that contain textual content are in
general more useful than those that do not. Some applications (one
example is full-text indexers) require a minimum amount of text or
(X)HTML to function reliably and predictably. Feed producers should
be aware of these issues. It is advisable that each atom:entry
element contain a non-empty atom:title element, a non-empty
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 12]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
atom:content element when that element is present, and a non-empty
atom:summary element when the entry contains no atom:content element.
However, the absence of atom:summary is not an error, and Atom
Processors MUST NOT fail to function correctly as a consequence of
such an absence.
4.1.2. The "atom:entry" Element
The "atom:entry" element represents an individual entry, acting as a
container for metadata and data associated with the entry. This
element can appear as a child of the atom:feed element, or it can
appear as the document (i.e., top-level) element of a stand-alone
Atom Entry Document.
atomEntry =
element atom:entry {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomAuthor*
& atomCategory*
& atomContent?
& atomContributor*
& atomId
& atomLink*
& atomPublished?
& atomRights?
& atomSource?
& atomSummary?
& atomTitle
& atomUpdated
& extensionElement*)
}
This specification assigns no significance to the order of appearance
of the child elements of atom:entry.
The following child elements are defined by this specification (note
that it requires the presence of some of these elements):
o atom:entry elements MUST contain one or more atom:author elements,
unless the atom:entry contains an atom:source element that
contains an atom:author element or, in an Atom Feed Document, the
atom:feed element contains an atom:author element itself.
o atom:entry elements MAY contain any number of atom:category
elements.
o atom:entry elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:content
element.
o atom:entry elements MAY contain any number of atom:contributor
elements.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 13]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
o atom:entry elements MUST contain exactly one atom:id element.
o atom:entry elements that contain no child atom:content element
MUST contain at least one atom:link element with a rel attribute
value of "alternate".
o atom:entry elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:link
element with a rel attribute value of "alternate" that has the
same combination of type and hreflang attribute values.
o atom:entry elements MAY contain additional atom:link elements
beyond those described above.
o atom:entry elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:published
element.
o atom:entry elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:rights
element.
o atom:entry elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:source
element.
o atom:entry elements MUST contain an atom:summary element in either
of the following cases:
* the atom:entry contains an atom:content that has a "src"
attribute (and is thus empty).
* the atom:entry contains content that is encoded in Base64;
i.e., the "type" attribute of atom:content is a MIME media type
[MIMEREG], but is not an XML media type [RFC3023], does not
begin with "text/", and does not end with "/xml" or "+xml".
o atom:entry elements MUST NOT contain more than one atom:summary
element.
o atom:entry elements MUST contain exactly one atom:title element.
o atom:entry elements MUST contain exactly one atom:updated element.
4.1.3. The "atom:content" Element
The "atom:content" element either contains or links to the content of
the entry. The content of atom:content is Language-Sensitive.
atomInlineTextContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "text" | "html" }?,
(text)*
}
atomInlineXHTMLContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "xhtml" },
xhtmlDiv
}
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 14]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
atomInlineOtherContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { atomMediaType }?,
(text|anyElement)*
}
atomOutOfLineContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { atomMediaType }?,
attribute src { atomUri },
empty
}
atomContent = atomInlineTextContent
| atomInlineXHTMLContent
| atomInlineOtherContent
| atomOutOfLineContent
4.1.3.1. The "type" Attribute
On the atom:content element, the value of the "type" attribute MAY be
one of "text", "html", or "xhtml". Failing that, it MUST conform to
the syntax of a MIME media type, but MUST NOT be a composite type
(see Section 4.2.6 of [MIMEREG]). If neither the type attribute nor
the src attribute is provided, Atom Processors MUST behave as though
the type attribute were present with a value of "text".
4.1.3.2. The "src" Attribute
atom:content MAY have a "src" attribute, whose value MUST be an IRI
reference [RFC3987]. If the "src" attribute is present, atom:content
MUST be empty. Atom Processors MAY use the IRI to retrieve the
content and MAY choose to ignore remote content or to present it in a
different manner than local content.
If the "src" attribute is present, the "type" attribute SHOULD be
provided and MUST be a MIME media type [MIMEREG], rather than "text",
"html", or "xhtml". The value is advisory; that is to say, when the
corresponding URI (mapped from an IRI, if necessary) is dereferenced,
if the server providing that content also provides a media type, the
server-provided media type is authoritative.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 15]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
4.1.3.3. Processing Model
Atom Documents MUST conform to the following rules. Atom Processors
MUST interpret atom:content according to the first applicable rule.
1. If the value of "type" is "text", the content of atom:content
MUST NOT contain child elements. Such text is intended to be
presented to humans in a readable fashion. Thus, Atom Processors
MAY collapse white space (including line breaks), and display the
text using typographic techniques such as justification and
proportional fonts.
2. If the value of "type" is "html", the content of atom:content
MUST NOT contain child elements and SHOULD be suitable for
handling as HTML [HTML]. The HTML markup MUST be escaped; for
example, "<br>" as "<br>". The HTML markup SHOULD be such
that it could validly appear directly within an HTML <DIV>
element. Atom Processors that display the content MAY use the
markup to aid in displaying it.
3. If the value of "type" is "xhtml", the content of atom:content
MUST be a single XHTML div element [XHTML] and SHOULD be suitable
for handling as XHTML. The XHTML div element itself MUST NOT be
considered part of the content. Atom Processors that display the
content MAY use the markup to aid in displaying it. The escaped
versions of characters such as "&" and ">" represent those
characters, not markup.
4. If the value of "type" is an XML media type [RFC3023] or ends
with "+xml" or "/xml" (case insensitive), the content of
atom:content MAY include child elements and SHOULD be suitable
for handling as the indicated media type. If the "src" attribute
is not provided, this would normally mean that the "atom:content"
element would contain a single child element that would serve as
the root element of the XML document of the indicated type.
5. If the value of "type" begins with "text/" (case insensitive),
the content of atom:content MUST NOT contain child elements.
6. For all other values of "type", the content of atom:content MUST
be a valid Base64 encoding, as described in [RFC3548], section 3.
When decoded, it SHOULD be suitable for handling as the indicated
media type. In this case, the characters in the Base64 encoding
MAY be preceded and followed in the atom:content element by white
space, and lines are separated by a single newline (U+000A)
character.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 16]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
4.1.3.4. Examples
XHTML inline:
...
<content type="xhtml">
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
This is <b>XHTML</b> content.
</div>
</content>
...
<content type="xhtml">
<xhtml:div xmlns:xhtml="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
This is <xhtml:b>XHTML</xhtml:b> content.
</xhtml:div>
</content>
...
The following example assumes that the XHTML namespace has been bound
to the "xh" prefix earlier in the document:
...
<content type="xhtml">
<xh:div>
This is <xh:b>XHTML</xh:b> content.
</xh:div>
</content>
...
4.2. Metadata Elements
4.2.1. The "atom:author" Element
The "atom:author" element is a Person construct that indicates the
author of the entry or feed.
atomAuthor = element atom:author { atomPersonConstruct }
If an atom:entry element does not contain atom:author elements, then
the atom:author elements of the contained atom:source element are
considered to apply. In an Atom Feed Document, the atom:author
elements of the containing atom:feed element are considered to apply
to the entry if there are no atom:author elements in the locations
described above.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 17]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
4.2.2. The "atom:category" Element
The "atom:category" element conveys information about a category
associated with an entry or feed. This specification assigns no
meaning to the content (if any) of this element.
atomCategory =
element atom:category {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute term { text },
attribute scheme { atomUri }?,
attribute label { text }?,
undefinedContent
}
4.2.2.1. The "term" Attribute
The "term" attribute is a string that identifies the category to
which the entry or feed belongs. Category elements MUST have a
"term" attribute.
4.2.2.2. The "scheme" Attribute
The "scheme" attribute is an IRI that identifies a categorization
scheme. Category elements MAY have a "scheme" attribute.
4.2.2.3. The "label" Attribute
The "label" attribute provides a human-readable label for display in
end-user applications. The content of the "label" attribute is
Language-Sensitive. Entities such as "&" and "<" represent
their corresponding characters ("&" and "<", respectively), not
markup. Category elements MAY have a "label" attribute.
4.2.3. The "atom:contributor" Element
The "atom:contributor" element is a Person construct that indicates a
person or other entity who contributed to the entry or feed.
atomContributor = element atom:contributor { atomPersonConstruct }
4.2.4. The "atom:generator" Element
The "atom:generator" element's content identifies the agent used to
generate a feed, for debugging and other purposes.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 18]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
atomGenerator = element atom:generator {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute uri { atomUri }?,
attribute version { text }?,
text
}
The content of this element, when present, MUST be a string that is a
human-readable name for the generating agent. Entities such as
"&" and "<" represent their corresponding characters ("&" and
"<" respectively), not markup.
The atom:generator element MAY have a "uri" attribute whose value
MUST be an IRI reference [RFC3987]. When dereferenced, the resulting
URI (mapped from an IRI, if necessary) SHOULD produce a
representation that is relevant to that agent.
The atom:generator element MAY have a "version" attribute that
indicates the version of the generating agent.
4.2.5. The "atom:icon" Element
The "atom:icon" element's content is an IRI reference [RFC3987] that
identifies an image that provides iconic visual identification for a
feed.
atomIcon = element atom:icon {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomUri)
}
The image SHOULD have an aspect ratio of one (horizontal) to one
(vertical) and SHOULD be suitable for presentation at a small size.
4.2.6. The "atom:id" Element
The "atom:id" element conveys a permanent, universally unique
identifier for an entry or feed.
atomId = element atom:id {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomUri)
}
Its content MUST be an IRI, as defined by [RFC3987]. Note that the
definition of "IRI" excludes relative references. Though the IRI
might use a dereferencable scheme, Atom Processors MUST NOT assume it
can be dereferenced.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 19]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
When an Atom Document is relocated, migrated, syndicated,
republished, exported, or imported, the content of its atom:id
element MUST NOT change. Put another way, an atom:id element
pertains to all instantiations of a particular Atom entry or feed;
revisions retain the same content in their atom:id elements. It is
suggested that the atom:id element be stored along with the
associated resource.
The content of an atom:id element MUST be created in a way that
assures uniqueness.
Because of the risk of confusion between IRIs that would be
equivalent if they were mapped to URIs and dereferenced, the
following normalization strategy SHOULD be applied when generating
atom:id elements:
o Provide the scheme in lowercase characters.
o Provide the host, if any, in lowercase characters.
o Only perform percent-encoding where it is essential.
o Use uppercase A through F characters when percent-encoding.
o Prevent dot-segments from appearing in paths.
o For schemes that define a default authority, use an empty
authority if the default is desired.
o For schemes that define an empty path to be equivalent to a path
of "/", use "/".
o For schemes that define a port, use an empty port if the default
is desired.
o Preserve empty fragment identifiers and queries.
o Ensure that all components of the IRI are appropriately character
normalized, e.g., by using NFC or NFKC.
4.2.6.1. Comparing atom:id
Instances of atom:id elements can be compared to determine whether an
entry or feed is the same as one seen before. Processors MUST
compare atom:id elements on a character-by-character basis (in a
case-sensitive fashion). Comparison operations MUST be based solely
on the IRI character strings and MUST NOT rely on dereferencing the
IRIs or URIs mapped from them.
As a result, two IRIs that resolve to the same resource but are not
character-for-character identical will be considered different for
the purposes of identifier comparison.
For example, these are four distinct identifiers, despite the fact
that they differ only in case:
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 20]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
http://www.example.org/thing
http://www.example.org/Thing
http://www.EXAMPLE.org/thing
HTTP://www.example.org/thing
Likewise, these are three distinct identifiers, because IRI
%-escaping is significant for the purposes of comparison:
http://www.example.com/~bob
http://www.example.com/%7ebob
http://www.example.com/%7Ebob
4.2.7. The "atom:link" Element
The "atom:link" element defines a reference from an entry or feed to
a Web resource. This specification assigns no meaning to the content
(if any) of this element.
atomLink =
element atom:link {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute href { atomUri },
attribute rel { atomNCName | atomUri }?,
attribute type { atomMediaType }?,
attribute hreflang { atomLanguageTag }?,
attribute title { text }?,
attribute length { text }?,
undefinedContent
}
4.2.7.1. The "href" Attribute
The "href" attribute contains the link's IRI. atom:link elements MUST
have an href attribute, whose value MUST be a IRI reference
[RFC3987].
4.2.7.2. The "rel" Attribute
atom:link elements MAY have a "rel" attribute that indicates the link
relation type. If the "rel" attribute is not present, the link
element MUST be interpreted as if the link relation type is
"alternate".
The value of "rel" MUST be a string that is non-empty and matches
either the "isegment-nz-nc" or the "IRI" production in [RFC3987].
Note that use of a relative reference other than a simple name is not
allowed. If a name is given, implementations MUST consider the link
relation type equivalent to the same name registered within the IANA
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 21]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
Registry of Link Relations (Section 7), and thus to the IRI that
would be obtained by appending the value of the rel attribute to the
string "http://www.iana.org/assignments/relation/". The value of
"rel" describes the meaning of the link, but does not impose any
behavioral requirements on Atom Processors.
This document defines five initial values for the Registry of Link
Relations:
1. The value "alternate" signifies that the IRI in the value of the
href attribute identifies an alternate version of the resource
described by the containing element.
2. The value "related" signifies that the IRI in the value of the
href attribute identifies a resource related to the resource
described by the containing element. For example, the feed for a
site that discusses the performance of the search engine at
"http://search.example.com" might contain, as a child of
atom:feed:
<link rel="related" href="http://search.example.com/"/>
An identical link might appear as a child of any atom:entry whose
content contains a discussion of that same search engine.
3. The value "self" signifies that the IRI in the value of the href
attribute identifies a resource equivalent to the containing
element.
4. The value "enclosure" signifies that the IRI in the value of the
href attribute identifies a related resource that is potentially
large in size and might require special handling. For atom:link
elements with rel="enclosure", the length attribute SHOULD be
provided.
5. The value "via" signifies that the IRI in the value of the href
attribute identifies a resource that is the source of the
information provided in the containing element.
4.2.7.3. The "type" Attribute
On the link element, the "type" attribute's value is an advisory
media type: it is a hint about the type of the representation that is
expected to be returned when the value of the href attribute is
dereferenced. Note that the type attribute does not override the
actual media type returned with the representation. Link elements
MAY have a type attribute, whose value MUST conform to the syntax of
a MIME media type [MIMEREG].
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 22]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
4.2.7.4. The "hreflang" Attribute
The "hreflang" attribute's content describes the language of the
resource pointed to by the href attribute. When used together with
the rel="alternate", it implies a translated version of the entry.
Link elements MAY have an hreflang attribute, whose value MUST be a
language tag [RFC3066].
4.2.7.5. The "title" Attribute
The "title" attribute conveys human-readable information about the
link. The content of the "title" attribute is Language-Sensitive.
Entities such as "&" and "<" represent their corresponding
characters ("&" and "<", respectively), not markup. Link elements
MAY have a title attribute.
4.2.7.6. The "length" Attribute
The "length" attribute indicates an advisory length of the linked
content in octets; it is a hint about the content length of the
representation returned when the IRI in the href attribute is mapped
to a URI and dereferenced. Note that the length attribute does not
override the actual content length of the representation as reported
by the underlying protocol. Link elements MAY have a length
attribute.
4.2.8. The "atom:logo" Element
The "atom:logo" element's content is an IRI reference [RFC3987] that
identifies an image that provides visual identification for a feed.
atomLogo = element atom:logo {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomUri)
}
The image SHOULD have an aspect ratio of 2 (horizontal) to 1
(vertical).
4.2.9. The "atom:published" Element
The "atom:published" element is a Date construct indicating an
instant in time associated with an event early in the life cycle of
the entry.
atomPublished = element atom:published { atomDateConstruct }
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 23]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
Typically, atom:published will be associated with the initial
creation or first availability of the resource.
4.2.10. The "atom:rights" Element
The "atom:rights" element is a Text construct that conveys
information about rights held in and over an entry or feed.
atomRights = element atom:rights { atomTextConstruct }
The atom:rights element SHOULD NOT be used to convey machine-readable
licensing information.
If an atom:entry element does not contain an atom:rights element,
then the atom:rights element of the containing atom:feed element, if
present, is considered to apply to the entry.
4.2.11. The "atom:source" Element
If an atom:entry is copied from one feed into another feed, then the
source atom:feed's metadata (all child elements of atom:feed other
than the atom:entry elements) MAY be preserved within the copied
entry by adding an atom:source child element, if it is not already
present in the entry, and including some or all of the source feed's
Metadata elements as the atom:source element's children. Such
metadata SHOULD be preserved if the source atom:feed contains any of
the child elements atom:author, atom:contributor, atom:rights, or
atom:category and those child elements are not present in the source
atom:entry.
atomSource =
element atom:source {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomAuthor*
& atomCategory*
& atomContributor*
& atomGenerator?
& atomIcon?
& atomId?
& atomLink*
& atomLogo?
& atomRights?
& atomSubtitle?
& atomTitle?
& atomUpdated?
& extensionElement*)
}
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 24]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
The atom:source element is designed to allow the aggregation of
entries from different feeds while retaining information about an
entry's source feed. For this reason, Atom Processors that are
performing such aggregation SHOULD include at least the required
feed-level Metadata elements (atom:id, atom:title, and atom:updated)
in the atom:source element.
4.2.12. The "atom:subtitle" Element
The "atom:subtitle" element is a Text construct that conveys a human-
readable description or subtitle for a feed.
atomSubtitle = element atom:subtitle { atomTextConstruct }
4.2.13. The "atom:summary" Element
The "atom:summary" element is a Text construct that conveys a short
summary, abstract, or excerpt of an entry.
atomSummary = element atom:summary { atomTextConstruct }
It is not advisable for the atom:summary element to duplicate
atom:title or atom:content because Atom Processors might assume there
is a useful summary when there is none.
4.2.14. The "atom:title" Element
The "atom:title" element is a Text construct that conveys a human-
readable title for an entry or feed.
atomTitle = element atom:title { atomTextConstruct }
4.2.15. The "atom:updated" Element
The "atom:updated" element is a Date construct indicating the most
recent instant in time when an entry or feed was modified in a way
the publisher considers significant. Therefore, not all
modifications necessarily result in a changed atom:updated value.
atomUpdated = element atom:updated { atomDateConstruct }
Publishers MAY change the value of this element over time.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 25]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
5. Securing Atom Documents
Because Atom is an XML-based format, existing XML security mechanisms
can be used to secure its content.
Producers of feeds and/or entries, and intermediaries who aggregate
feeds and/or entries, may have sound reasons for signing and/or
encrypting otherwise-unprotected content. For example, a merchant
might digitally sign a message that contains a discount coupon for
its products. A bank that uses Atom to deliver customer statements
is very likely to want to sign and encrypt those messages to protect
their customers' financial information and to assure the customer of
their authenticity. Intermediaries may want to encrypt aggregated
feeds so that a passive observer cannot tell what topics the
recipient is interested in. Of course, many other examples exist as
well.
The algorithm requirements in this section pertain to the Atom
Processor. They require that a recipient, at a minimum, be able to
handle messages that use the specified cryptographic algorithms.
These requirements do not limit the algorithms that the sender can
choose.
5.1. Digital Signatures
The root of an Atom Document (i.e., atom:feed in an Atom Feed
Document, atom:entry in an Atom Entry Document) or any atom:entry
element MAY have an Enveloped Signature, as described by XML-
Signature and Syntax Processing [W3C.REC-xmldsig-core-20020212].
Atom Processors MUST NOT reject an Atom Document containing such a
signature because they are not capable of verifying it; they MUST
continue processing and MAY inform the user of their failure to
validate the signature.
In other words, the presence of an element with the namespace URI
"http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" and a local name of "Signature"
as a child of the document element MUST NOT cause an Atom Processor
to fail merely because of its presence.
Other elements in an Atom Document MUST NOT be signed unless their
definitions explicitly specify such a capability.
Section 6.5.1 of [W3C.REC-xmldsig-core-20020212] requires support for
Canonical XML [W3C.REC-xml-c14n-20010315]. However, many
implementers do not use it because signed XML documents enclosed in
other XML documents have their signatures broken. Thus, Atom
Processors that verify signed Atom Documents MUST be able to
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 26]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
canonicalize with the exclusive XML canonicalization method
identified by the URI "http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#", as
specified in Exclusive XML Canonicalization
[W3C.REC-xml-exc-c14n-20020718].
Intermediaries such as aggregators may need to add an atom:source
element to an entry that does not contain its own atom:source
element. If such an entry is signed, the addition will break the
signature. Thus, a publisher of individually-signed entries should
strongly consider adding an atom:source element to those entries
before signing them. Implementers should also be aware of the issues
concerning the use of markup in the "xml:" namespace as it interacts
with canonicalization.
Section 4.4.2 of [W3C.REC-xmldsig-core-20020212] requires support for
DSA signatures and recommends support for RSA signatures. However,
because of the much greater popularity in the market of RSA versus
DSA, Atom Processors that verify signed Atom Documents MUST be able
to verify RSA signatures, but do not need be able to verify DSA
signatures. Due to security issues that can arise if the keying
material for message authentication code (MAC) authentication is not
handled properly, Atom Documents SHOULD NOT use MACs for signatures.
5.2. Encryption
The root of an Atom Document (i.e., atom:feed in an Atom Feed
Document, atom:entry in an Atom Entry Document) MAY be encrypted,
using the mechanisms described by XML Encryption Syntax and
Processing [W3C.REC-xmlenc-core-20021210].
Section 5.1 of [W3C.REC-xmlenc-core-20021210] requires support of
TripleDES, AES-128, and AES-256. Atom Processors that decrypt Atom
Documents MUST be able to decrypt with AES-128 in Cipher Block
Chaining (CBC) mode.
Encryption based on [W3C.REC-xmlenc-core-20021210] does not ensure
integrity of the original document. There are known cryptographic
attacks where someone who cannot decrypt a message can still change
bits in a way where part or all the decrypted message makes sense but
has a different meaning. Thus, Atom Processors that decrypt Atom
Documents SHOULD check the integrity of the decrypted document by
verifying the hash in the signature (if any) in the document, or by
verifying a hash of the document within the document (if any).
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 27]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
5.3. Signing and Encrypting
When an Atom Document is to be both signed and encrypted, it is
generally a good idea to first sign the document, then encrypt the
signed document. This provides integrity to the base document while
encrypting all the information, including the identity of the entity
that signed the document. Note that, if MACs are used for
authentication, the order MUST be that the document is signed and
then encrypted, and not the other way around.
6. Extending Atom
6.1. Extensions from Non-Atom Vocabularies
This specification describes Atom's XML markup vocabulary. Markup
from other vocabularies ("foreign markup") can be used in an Atom
Document. Note that the atom:content element is designed to support
the inclusion of arbitrary foreign markup.
6.2. Extensions to the Atom Vocabulary
The Atom namespace is reserved for future forward-compatible
revisions of Atom. Future versions of this specification could add
new elements and attributes to the Atom markup vocabulary. Software
written to conform to this version of the specification will not be
able to process such markup correctly and, in fact, will not be able
to distinguish it from markup error. For the purposes of this
discussion, unrecognized markup from the Atom vocabulary will be
considered "foreign markup".
6.3. Processing Foreign Markup
Atom Processors that encounter foreign markup in a location that is
legal according to this specification MUST NOT stop processing or
signal an error. It might be the case that the Atom Processor is
able to process the foreign markup correctly and does so. Otherwise,
such markup is termed "unknown foreign markup".
When unknown foreign markup is encountered as a child of atom:entry,
atom:feed, or a Person construct, Atom Processors MAY bypass the
markup and any textual content and MUST NOT change their behavior as
a result of the markup's presence.
When unknown foreign markup is encountered in a Text Construct or
atom:content element, software SHOULD ignore the markup and process
any text content of foreign elements as though the surrounding markup
were not present.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 28]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
6.4. Extension Elements
Atom allows foreign markup anywhere in an Atom document, except where
it is explicitly forbidden. Child elements of atom:entry, atom:feed,
atom:source, and Person constructs are considered Metadata elements
and are described below. Child elements of Person constructs are
considered to apply to the construct. The role of other foreign
markup is undefined by this specification.
6.4.1. Simple Extension Elements
A Simple Extension element MUST NOT have any attributes or child
elements. The element MAY contain character data or be empty.
Simple Extension elements are not Language-Sensitive.
simpleExtensionElement =
element * - atom:* {
text
}
The element can be interpreted as a simple property (or name/value
pair) of the parent element that encloses it. The pair consisting of
the namespace-URI of the element and the local name of the element
can be interpreted as the name of the property. The character data
content of the element can be interpreted as the value of the
property. If the element is empty, then the property value can be
interpreted as an empty string.
6.4.2. Structured Extension Elements
The root element of a Structured Extension element MUST have at least
one attribute or child element. It MAY have attributes, it MAY
contain well-formed XML content (including character data), or it MAY
be empty. Structured Extension elements are Language-Sensitive.
structuredExtensionElement =
element * - atom:* {
(attribute * { text }+,
(text|anyElement)*)
| (attribute * { text }*,
(text?, anyElement+, (text|anyElement)*))
}
The structure of a Structured Extension element, including the order
of its child elements, could be significant.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 29]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
This specification does not provide an interpretation of a Structured
Extension element. The syntax of the XML contained in the element
(and an interpretation of how the element relates to its containing
element) is defined by the specification of the Atom extension.
7. IANA Considerations
An Atom Document, when serialized as XML 1.0, can be identified with
the following media type:
MIME media type name: application
MIME subtype name: atom+xml
Mandatory parameters: None.
Optional parameters:
"charset": This parameter has semantics identical to the charset
parameter of the "application/xml" media type as specified in
[RFC3023].
Encoding considerations: Identical to those of "application/xml" as
described in [RFC3023], Section 3.2.
Security considerations: As defined in this specification.
In addition, as this media type uses the "+xml" convention, it
shares the same security considerations as described in [RFC3023],
Section 10.
Interoperability considerations: There are no known interoperability
issues.
Published specification: This specification.
Applications that use this media type: No known applications
currently use this media type.
Additional information:
Magic number(s): As specified for "application/xml" in [RFC3023],
Section 3.2.
File extension: .atom
Fragment identifiers: As specified for "application/xml" in
[RFC3023], Section 5.
Base URI: As specified in [RFC3023], Section 6.
Macintosh File Type code: TEXT
Person and email address to contact for further information: Mark
Nottingham <mnot@pobox.com>
Intended usage: COMMON
Author/Change controller: IESG
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 30]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
7.1. Registry of Link Relations
This registry is maintained by IANA and initially contains five
values: "alternate", "related", "self", "enclosure", and "via". New
assignments are subject to IESG Approval, as outlined in [RFC2434].
Requests should be made by email to IANA, which will then forward the
request to the IESG, requesting approval. The request should use the
following template:
o Attribute Value: (A value for the "rel" attribute that conforms to
the syntax rule given in Section 4.2.7.2)
o Description:
o Expected display characteristics:
o Security considerations:
8. Security Considerations
8.1. HTML and XHTML Content
Text constructs and atom:content allow the delivery of HTML and
XHTML. Many elements in these languages are considered 'unsafe' in
that they open clients to one or more types of attack. Implementers
of software that processes Atom should carefully consider their
handling of every type of element when processing incoming (X)HTML in
Atom Documents. See the security sections of [RFC2854] and [HTML]
for guidance.
Atom Processors should pay particular attention to the security of
the IMG, SCRIPT, EMBED, OBJECT, FRAME, FRAMESET, IFRAME, META, and
LINK elements, but other elements might also have negative security
properties.
(X)HTML can either directly contain or indirectly reference
executable content.
8.2. URIs
Atom Processors handle URIs. See Section 7 of [RFC3986].
8.3. IRIs
Atom Processors handle IRIs. See Section 8 of [RFC3987].
8.4. Spoofing
Atom Processors should be aware of the potential for spoofing attacks
where the attacker publishes an atom:entry with the atom:id value of
an entry from another feed, perhaps with a falsified atom:source
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 31]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
element duplicating the atom:id of the other feed. For example, an
Atom Processor could suppress display of duplicate entries by
displaying only one entry from a set of entries with identical
atom:id values. In that situation, the Atom Processor might also
take steps to determine whether the entries originated from the same
publisher before considering them duplicates.
8.5. Encryption and Signing
Atom Documents can be encrypted and signed using
[W3C.REC-xmlenc-core-20021210] and [W3C.REC-xmldsig-core-20020212],
respectively, and are subject to the security considerations implied
by their use.
Digital signatures provide authentication, message integrity, and
non-repudiation with proof of origin. Encryption provides data
confidentiality.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[HTML] Raggett, D., Hors, A., and I. Jacobs, "HTML 4.01
Specification", W3C REC REC-html401-19991224,
December 1999,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224>.
[MIMEREG] Freed, N. and J. Klensin, "Media Type Specifications and
Registration Procedures", BCP 13, RFC 4288, December 2005.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2822] Resnick, P., "Internet Message Format", RFC 2822,
April 2001.
[RFC2854] Connolly, D. and L. Masinter, "The 'text/html' Media
Type", RFC 2854, June 2000.
[RFC3023] Murata, M., St. Laurent, S., and D. Kohn, "XML Media
Types", RFC 3023, January 2001.
[RFC3066] Alvestrand, H., "Tags for the Identification of
Languages", BCP 47, RFC 3066, January 2001.
[RFC3339] Klyne, G. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the Internet:
Timestamps", RFC 3339, July 2002.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 32]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
[RFC3548] Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data
Encodings", RFC 3548, July 2003.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, January 2005.
[RFC3987] Duerst, M. and M. Suignard, "Internationalized Resource
Identifiers (IRIs)", RFC 3987, January 2005.
[W3C.REC-xml-20040204]
Yergeau, F., Paoli, J., Sperberg-McQueen, C., Bray, T.,
and E. Maler, "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Third
Edition)", W3C REC REC-xml-20040204, February 2004,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-20040204>.
[W3C.REC-xml-c14n-20010315]
Boyer, J., "Canonical XML Version 1.0", W3C REC REC-xml-
c14n-20010315, March 2001,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xml-c14n-20010315>.
[W3C.REC-xml-exc-c14n-20020718]
Eastlake, D., Boyer, J., and J. Reagle, "Exclusive XML
Canonicalization Version 1.0", W3C REC REC-xml-exc-c14n-
20020718, July 2002,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xml-exc-c14n-20020718>.
[W3C.REC-xml-infoset-20040204]
Cowan, J. and R. Tobin, "XML Information Set (Second
Edition)", W3C REC REC-xml-infoset-20040204,
February 2004,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xml-infoset-20040204>.
[W3C.REC-xml-names-19990114]
Hollander, D., Bray, T., and A. Layman, "Namespaces in
XML", W3C REC REC-xml-names-19990114, January 1999,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-xml-names-19990114>.
[W3C.REC-xmlbase-20010627]
Marsh, J., "XML Base", W3C REC REC-xmlbase-20010627,
June 2001,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/REC-xmlbase-20010627>.
[W3C.REC-xmldsig-core-20020212]
Solo, D., Reagle, J., and D. Eastlake, "XML-Signature
Syntax and Processing", W3C REC REC-xmldsig-core-20020212,
February 2002,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xmldsig-core-20020212>.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 33]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
[W3C.REC-xmlenc-core-20021210]
Reagle, J. and D. Eastlake, "XML Encryption Syntax and
Processing", W3C REC REC-xmlenc-core-20021210,
December 2002,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/REC-xmlenc-core-20021210>.
[XHTML] Altheim, M., Boumphrey, F., McCarron, S., Dooley, S.,
Schnitzenbaumer, S., and T. Wugofski, "Modularization of
XHTML[TM]", W3C REC REC-xhtml-modularization-20010410,
April 2001, <http://www.w3.org/TR/2001/
REC-xhtml-modularization-20010410>.
9.2. Informative References
[ISO.8601.1988]
International Organization for Standardization, "Data
elements and interchange formats - Information interchange
- Representation of dates and times", ISO Standard 8601,
June 1988.
[RELAX-NG] Clark, J., "RELAX NG Compact Syntax", December 2001,
<http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/relax-ng/
compact-20021121.html>.
[RFC2434] Narten, T. and H. Alvestrand, "Guidelines for Writing an
IANA Considerations Section in RFCs", BCP 26, RFC 2434,
October 1998.
[W3C.NOTE-datetime-19980827]
Wolf, M. and C. Wicksteed, "Date and Time Formats", W3C
NOTE NOTE-datetime-19980827, August 1998,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/NOTE-datetime-19980827>.
[W3C.REC-xmlschema-2-20041028]
Malhotra, A. and P. Biron, "XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes
Second Edition", W3C REC REC-xmlschema-2-20041028,
October 2004,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/REC-xmlschema-2-20041028>.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 34]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
Appendix A. Contributors
The following people contributed to preliminary versions of this
document: Tim Bray, Mark Pilgrim, and Sam Ruby. Norman Walsh
provided the Relax NG schema. The content and concepts within are a
product of the Atom community and the Atompub Working Group.
The Atompub Working Group has dozens of very active contributors who
proposed ideas and wording for this document, including:
Danny Ayers, James Aylett, Roger Benningfield, Arve Bersvendsen, Tim
Bray, Dan Brickley, Thomas Broyer, Robin Cover, Bill de hOra, Martin
Duerst, Roy Fielding, Joe Gregorio, Bjoern Hoehrmann, Paul Hoffman,
Anne van Kesteren, Brett Lindsley, Dare Obasanjo, David Orchard,
Aristotle Pagaltzis, John Panzer, Graham Parks, Dave Pawson, Mark
Pilgrim, David Powell, Julian Reschke, Phil Ringnalda, Antone Roundy,
Sam Ruby, Eric Scheid, Brent Simmons, Henri Sivonen, Ray Slakinski,
James Snell, Henry Story, Asbjorn Ulsberg, Walter Underwood, Norman
Walsh, Dave Winer, and Bob Wyman.
Appendix B. RELAX NG Compact Schema
This appendix is informative.
The Relax NG schema explicitly excludes elements in the Atom
namespace that are not defined in this revision of the specification.
Requirements for Atom Processors encountering such markup are given
in Sections 6.2 and 6.3.
# -*- rnc -*-
# RELAX NG Compact Syntax Grammar for the
# Atom Format Specification Version 11
namespace atom = "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
namespace xhtml = "http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"
namespace s = "http://www.ascc.net/xml/schematron"
namespace local = ""
start = atomFeed | atomEntry
# Common attributes
atomCommonAttributes =
attribute xml:base { atomUri }?,
attribute xml:lang { atomLanguageTag }?,
undefinedAttribute*
# Text Constructs
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 35]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
atomPlainTextConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "text" | "html" }?,
text
atomXHTMLTextConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "xhtml" },
xhtmlDiv
atomTextConstruct = atomPlainTextConstruct | atomXHTMLTextConstruct
# Person Construct
atomPersonConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
(element atom:name { text }
& element atom:uri { atomUri }?
& element atom:email { atomEmailAddress }?
& extensionElement*)
# Date Construct
atomDateConstruct =
atomCommonAttributes,
xsd:dateTime
# atom:feed
atomFeed =
[
s:rule [
context = "atom:feed"
s:assert [
test = "atom:author or not(atom:entry[not(atom:author)])"
"An atom:feed must have an atom:author unless all "
~ "of its atom:entry children have an atom:author."
]
]
]
element atom:feed {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomAuthor*
& atomCategory*
& atomContributor*
& atomGenerator?
& atomIcon?
& atomId
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 36]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
& atomLink*
& atomLogo?
& atomRights?
& atomSubtitle?
& atomTitle
& atomUpdated
& extensionElement*),
atomEntry*
}
# atom:entry
atomEntry =
[
s:rule [
context = "atom:entry"
s:assert [
test = "atom:link[@rel='alternate'] "
~ "or atom:link[not(@rel)] "
~ "or atom:content"
"An atom:entry must have at least one atom:link element "
~ "with a rel attribute of 'alternate' "
~ "or an atom:content."
]
]
s:rule [
context = "atom:entry"
s:assert [
test = "atom:author or "
~ "../atom:author or atom:source/atom:author"
"An atom:entry must have an atom:author "
~ "if its feed does not."
]
]
]
element atom:entry {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomAuthor*
& atomCategory*
& atomContent?
& atomContributor*
& atomId
& atomLink*
& atomPublished?
& atomRights?
& atomSource?
& atomSummary?
& atomTitle
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 37]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
& atomUpdated
& extensionElement*)
}
# atom:content
atomInlineTextContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "text" | "html" }?,
(text)*
}
atomInlineXHTMLContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { "xhtml" },
xhtmlDiv
}
atomInlineOtherContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { atomMediaType }?,
(text|anyElement)*
}
atomOutOfLineContent =
element atom:content {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute type { atomMediaType }?,
attribute src { atomUri },
empty
}
atomContent = atomInlineTextContent
| atomInlineXHTMLContent
| atomInlineOtherContent
| atomOutOfLineContent
# atom:author
atomAuthor = element atom:author { atomPersonConstruct }
# atom:category
atomCategory =
element atom:category {
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 38]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute term { text },
attribute scheme { atomUri }?,
attribute label { text }?,
undefinedContent
}
# atom:contributor
atomContributor = element atom:contributor { atomPersonConstruct }
# atom:generator
atomGenerator = element atom:generator {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute uri { atomUri }?,
attribute version { text }?,
text
}
# atom:icon
atomIcon = element atom:icon {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomUri)
}
# atom:id
atomId = element atom:id {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomUri)
}
# atom:logo
atomLogo = element atom:logo {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomUri)
}
# atom:link
atomLink =
element atom:link {
atomCommonAttributes,
attribute href { atomUri },
attribute rel { atomNCName | atomUri }?,
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 39]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
attribute type { atomMediaType }?,
attribute hreflang { atomLanguageTag }?,
attribute title { text }?,
attribute length { text }?,
undefinedContent
}
# atom:published
atomPublished = element atom:published { atomDateConstruct }
# atom:rights
atomRights = element atom:rights { atomTextConstruct }
# atom:source
atomSource =
element atom:source {
atomCommonAttributes,
(atomAuthor*
& atomCategory*
& atomContributor*
& atomGenerator?
& atomIcon?
& atomId?
& atomLink*
& atomLogo?
& atomRights?
& atomSubtitle?
& atomTitle?
& atomUpdated?
& extensionElement*)
}
# atom:subtitle
atomSubtitle = element atom:subtitle { atomTextConstruct }
# atom:summary
atomSummary = element atom:summary { atomTextConstruct }
# atom:title
atomTitle = element atom:title { atomTextConstruct }
# atom:updated
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 40]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
atomUpdated = element atom:updated { atomDateConstruct }
# Low-level simple types
atomNCName = xsd:string { minLength = "1" pattern = "[^:]*" }
# Whatever a media type is, it contains at least one slash
atomMediaType = xsd:string { pattern = ".+/.+" }
# As defined in RFC 3066
atomLanguageTag = xsd:string {
pattern = "[A-Za-z]{1,8}(-[A-Za-z0-9]{1,8})*"
}
# Unconstrained; it's not entirely clear how IRI fit into
# xsd:anyURI so let's not try to constrain it here
atomUri = text
# Whatever an email address is, it contains at least one @
atomEmailAddress = xsd:string { pattern = ".+@.+" }
# Simple Extension
simpleExtensionElement =
element * - atom:* {
text
}
# Structured Extension
structuredExtensionElement =
element * - atom:* {
(attribute * { text }+,
(text|anyElement)*)
| (attribute * { text }*,
(text?, anyElement+, (text|anyElement)*))
}
# Other Extensibility
extensionElement =
simpleExtensionElement | structuredExtensionElement
undefinedAttribute =
attribute * - (xml:base | xml:lang | local:*) { text }
undefinedContent = (text|anyForeignElement)*
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 41]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
anyElement =
element * {
(attribute * { text }
| text
| anyElement)*
}
anyForeignElement =
element * - atom:* {
(attribute * { text }
| text
| anyElement)*
}
# XHTML
anyXHTML = element xhtml:* {
(attribute * { text }
| text
| anyXHTML)*
}
xhtmlDiv = element xhtml:div {
(attribute * { text }
| text
| anyXHTML)*
}
# EOF
Authors' Addresses
Mark Nottingham (editor)
EMail: mnot@pobox.com
URI: http://www.mnot.net/
Robert Sayre (editor)
EMail: rfsayre@boswijck.com
URI: http://boswijck.com
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 42]
RFC 4287 Atom Format December 2005
Full Copyright Statement
Copyright (C) The Internet Society (2005).
This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions
contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors
retain all their rights.
This document and the information contained herein are provided on an
"AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS
OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY AND THE INTERNET
ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE
INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
Intellectual Property
The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any
Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to
pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in
this document or the extent to which any license under such rights
might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has
made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information
on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be
found in BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any
assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an
attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of
such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this
specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at
http://www.ietf.org/ipr.
The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any
copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary
rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement
this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-
ipr@ietf.org.
Acknowledgement
Funding for the RFC Editor function is currently provided by the
Internet Society.
Nottingham & Sayre Standards Track [Page 43]
ERRATA
