- From: Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org>
- Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2008 13:23:37 -0800
- To: "'Bjoern Hoehrmann'" <derhoermi@gmx.net>, "'Henrik Nordström'" <henrik@henriknordstrom.net>
- Cc: "'HTTP Working Group'" <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
> >> I would like us to formulate some guideline beyond the charter when > >> handling of specific errors is considered in scope of this group's > >> deliverables (so we would consider adding text pointing out the mis- > >> behavior, or making recommendations how to handle it). There are > >> some known cases where errors are common in practise and affect e.g. > >> efficiency (such as sending malformed If-Modified-Since headers), In general, defining how one party should respond to invalid values sent by another party is difficult, because the appropriate behavior is likely to be context dependent -- is HTTP being used by a browser, a transport for SOAP protocol messages, or some other application? I would urge the working group *not* to try to mandate MUST-required behavior when receiving invalid input -- it turns the "invalid" input into part of the protocol. It's likely that there are places where, for security or stability reasons, MUST (or SHOULD) requirements to respond with an error reply would make sense, but in any case, don't take it on as a specific charter item. Larry
Received on Wednesday, 2 January 2008 21:23:56 UTC