default for q-values in Accept-Language and elsewhere

Dear HTTP WG,

This was brought up in the LTRU WG by Mark Davis:

>Unfortunately, the specs are ill-defined regarding the q values. Take the >following example:
>
>a, b;q=0.7, c, d;q=0.5, e, f;q=0.9, g
>
>The specs do not distinguish between at least two different possible >reasonable interpretations of what the q values of c, e, and g are: 
    * >   c;q=1.0, e;q=1.0, g;q=1 // always 1 
    * >   c;q=0.7, e;q=0.5, g;q=0.9 // always same as previous 
> Our guess is that the user meant #2, but it is only a guess.

I read RFC 2616, and indeed didn't find any specification of
the defaults for q values in the case of Accept-Language.

Looking at other subsections of Section 14, there is an explicit
default of q=1 for Accept and Accept-Charset, but I also didn't
find a default for Accept-Encoding.

Please add this issue to your issue list unless you already
have it listed.

Regards,   Martin.


#-#-#  Martin J. Du"rst, Assoc. Professor, Aoyama Gakuin University
#-#-#  http://www.sw.it.aoyama.ac.jp       mailto:duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp

Received on Wednesday, 7 May 2008 07:09:14 UTC