JSON: multipart/form-data vs base64

[Mathieu Malaterre]

Hi there,

Could anyone comment on the choice of base64 for binary data in DICOM:

* http://dicom.nema.org/medical/dicom/current/output/chtml/part18/sect_F.2.3.html

It feels like sending base64 encoded data is a hack; the RFC `multipart/form-data` was created for issues such as this: sending binary data in combination with text or meta-data, right ?

ref:

* https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2388.txt

[Chris Hafey]

The DICOM standard process heavily favors leveraging existing standards. When work on the JSON encoding began, we had an existing XML encoding (from WG-23 app hosting) so that design was mapped to JSON. BulkDataURI can be used to downloaded binary items separately and as binary rather than base64.

http://dicom.nema.org/medical/dicom/current/output/chtml/part18/sect_F.2.6.html

It is assumed that server implementations would choose to inline base64 small binary data items (e.g. less than 128 bytes) and externalize BulkDataUri large data items.