Subfolder support for metalink

[maliayas]

Current metalink support actually allows to download a file to a specific subfolder, but only if I also provide a filename:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<metalink version="3.0" xmlns="http://www.metalinker.org/" xmlns:a0="http://www.downthemall.net/properties#" >
    <files>
        <file name="some/sub/folder/zvrconvert.zip" >
            <resources>
                <url type="http" >https://www.mediafire.com/file/4yta9move7g546a/zvrconvert.zip</url>
            </resources>
        </file>
    </files>
</metalink>

It simply ignores if I omit the file name:

<file name="some/sub/folder/" >

Implementing the above line would be nice because sometimes filename can not be extracted from the URL, but only content-disposition header.

Thanks in advance.

[maliayas]

I've done some reading on Metalink 3 and Metalink 4 specs to help developers and also start a discussion.

From Metalink 3 spec (4 is also the same):

<file> MUST have the attribute name containing the file name, as in:
<file name="example.ext">.

Firstly, it turns out that my request slightly contraditcs with both specs because both specs require name attribute for <file>. That means a metalink file always has to define target file name, it just cannot leave it to metalink application to infer from the content-disposition header.

In fact, that was a surprise to me, in terms of UX. Just like my web browser can download any URL and automatically decide the file name, I'd expect the same from a metalink application.

Besides that, I'd like to ask developers about extending Metalink spec in this regard, which I believe would be more intuitive and also still backwards compatible with existing specs.

What do you think?