哪个是更好的 XML 属性：base=64 或 encoding=base64

Question

I am designing an XML and wish to allow binary data to be encoded as either base16 or base64. The default will be base16.

For specifying base64, I wish to have an attribute. My two options are:

<foo encoding='base64'>TqpuiunH0mEWcSkYSINkTQffuny=</foo>

and:

<foo base='64'>TqpuiunH0mEWcSkYSINkTQffuny=</foo>

I think that the first is more descriptive but suspect that the second might be better. I'm looking for people's reactions.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Seeing as base64 is an encoding, the more semantic markup would be encoding="base64" .

People seeing base may think about a decimal base or binary, for example, which I don't believe is what you would want a reader to think.

Answer 2

Depends what the other options are. If the other options are base="2", base="10", or base="32" then I would use base="64". If the other options are encoding="hexBinary" and encoding="ebcdic" then I would use encoding="base64". I don't think you can decide the best representation for an attribute when you only know one of its possible values.