(last updated 2007-10-31)

1. URI scheme name

pack

2. Status

provisional

3. URI scheme syntax

See sections 3.1 and 3.3 of [1]

4. URI scheme semantics

a. "Pack" URI identifies a part resource within a package that
conforms to Open Packaging Conventions [2].

b. "Pack" URI is the default base URI of a part, and as such
must be used for resolving relative references to parts within
the same package as it is defined in RFC 3986, section 5.2 [3],
unless another base URI is explicitly provided.

5. Encoding considerations

"Pack" URI encoding conforms to the encoding rules established
for URIs in RFC 3986 (see section 3.3 of [1]).

6. Applications/protocols that use "pack" URI scheme

The "pack" URI scheme is a component of the Open Packaging
Conventions ([2]). It is used by following Microsoft applications:

a. Microsoft Windows Presentation Framework
b. Viewer for .XPS documents
c. Microsoft Office 12 applications: MS Word, MS Excel and MS
PowerPoint

7. Interoperability considerations

The authority component of a "pack" URI holds an encoded
representation of the URI referencing the complete whole package
resource. Because the "pack" URI schema places no restrictions
on the URI scheme used to address the package resource, an
application resolving a "pack" URI MUST understand the "pack" URI
scheme as well as the scheme of the URI encoded in the authority
component.

Implementations based on scheme-independent URI-parsing libraries
MUST enforce the additional restrictions (a) through (d) defined
in section 3.3 of [1].

8. Security Considerations

See section 6 of [1]

9. Contact

Jerry Dunietz
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Email: jerryd&microsoft.com

10. Author/Change controller

Andrey Shur
Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052-6399
Email: andreysh&microsoft.com

11. References

[1] Andrey Shur, Jerry Dunietz, ?The ?pack? URI Scheme?, Internet
Draft, August 2007, (http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-
shur-pack-uri-scheme-02.txt).
[2] Open Packaging Conventions. (Standard ECMA-376 "Office Open XML
File Formats", Part 2, December 2006)
[3] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66, RFC 3986,
January 2005.

(file created 2007-10-31)