query: how to locate description of QUERY-specific semantics of a media type?

[reschke]

How would a reader of the RFCs actually find out what the semantics of a given media type is for QUERY (that is, where it is defined)? Do we need a registry?

[reschke]

We do have the same issue with PATCH:

https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6902
https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7386

Didn't we also define "application/json" as patch format? If so, where?

[martinthomson]

For me, the question is whether we need to say anything. We say nothing much about POST, even for application/x-url-form-encoded and multipart/form-data. Those have a sort-of default semantic, but ultimately the meaning of parameters take on a meaning defined by the resource itself. Same for QUERY, or at least that is what I had always assumed.

[mnot]

That registry is the media type registry - each media type definition needs to define its semantics under applicable methods.

[reschke]

Aha, I read that first as if that was the cause already (which is not the case). Are you suggesting to add that over there? That mught be a hard sell...

[reschke]

@mnot - the media type does not have that information.

WRT QUERY: as opposed to PATCH, which has (or is supposed to have) strict semantics based on the format of the target resource and the PATCH body/type, QUERY is much more lenient. So do we actually have to say something? Can't we leave it to servers?