- From: David Morris <dwm@xpasc.com>
- Date: Tue, 25 May 2010 16:35:59 -0700 (PDT)
- To: HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
On Wed, 26 May 2010, Adrien de Croy wrote: > I was under the impression that the reason phrase wasn't interpreted as part > of the protocol. It would only be seen by people watching packet captures or > debug logs. > > for instance from RFC2616 s 6.1.1 > > para 1 > > The Reason-Phrase is intended to give a short > textual description of the Status-Code. The Status-Code is intended > for use by automata and the Reason-Phrase is intended for the human > user. The client is not required to examine or display the Reason- > Phrase. > > and para 3 > > The reason phrases listed here are only > recommendations -- they MAY be replaced by local equivalents without > affecting the protocol. > > > which I read to mean you can change the text to anything you like without > affecting the protocol. But reusing a code for more than one status value just makes life difficult for those of us who need to examine wire level data. It helps analysis to have meaningful phrases, in particular for status codes which may not be familiar.
Received on Tuesday, 25 May 2010 23:36:35 UTC