Re: Rev03 changes to 19.2, multipart/byteranges

On Mon, 27 Jul 1998, Dave Kristol wrote:

> Last week I wrote:
> > 
> > I propose here corrective wording for open issue RANGEDELIM (described
> > in <http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1998q2/0141.html>).
> > [...]
> > Now, HTTP introduces an interesting ambiguity, because the first line
> > of an entity body could well be considered the beginning of a line, and
> > it follows a CRLF.  However, since we must ignore the CRLF that
> > separates the headers from the body, the body does not really begin
> > with a CRLF.  So by my reading of RFC 2046, an HTTP multipart entity
> > would have to include an extra CRLF preceding the boundary.  I have
> > amended Section 19.2 of the HTTP spec. accordingly, along with the
> > example.
> 
> After discussions over the weekend, especially exchanges with Ned Freed,
> co-author of RFC 2046, I am amending my proposed changes.  In
> particular, most of them go away.  It turns out that a careful reading
> of RFC 2046 shows that an extra leading CRLF is unnecessary, and that
> the HTTP example was correct.  (Details:  the multipart-body grammar
> begins "[preamble CRLF]", which makes the cruft that often precedes
> multipart bodies, plus the CRLF that ends it, optional.)
> 

Enough people have been confused by this that it is important to
have an explicit warning that the leading CRLF is allowed and optional.

John Franks
john@math.nwu.edu

Received on Monday, 27 July 1998 12:13:06 UTC