- From: Nir Dagan <nir@nirdagan.com>
- Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 15:13:57 -0500
- To: w3c-wai-ua@w3.org
There are some unclear issues with the Refresh HTTP header/ Meta tag in the techniques document http://www.w3.org/TR/2000/WD-UAAG10-TECHS-20000128/ article 3.8 First I do not know what you mean by "server-side redirects". All redirects I know of are client side: 1. The server returning a response with a 3xx status code, and the client issues another request to the URI indicated in the location header. 2. The server returning a response with a 200 status code and a Refresh header, and the client issues another request to the URI specified in the Refresh header. 3. The server returning a response with a 200 status code and an enclosed HTML document with a meta tag imitating the Refresh header as in 2. above, and the client issues another request to the URI specified in the meta tag. Refresh and status 3xx have several differences: 1. Refresh may have a time delay suggestion 2. Refresh may refer to the same URI of the response. 3xx should not. In RFC2616 "10.3 Redirection 3xx" we find: "A client SHOULD detect infinite redirection loops, since such loops generate network traffic for each redirection." 3. Refresh is not a part of any HTTP specification. Its specification is given by Netscape's in: http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/pushpull.html The statement "Instead of this markup, authors should use server-side redirects (with HTTP)." doesn't make sense since 1. "server-side redirect" is not defined. 2. The markup example is of redirecting to the same page with a time delay, which is impossible with 3xx status code. 3. It is not an advice to user agents, but to content providers. Regards, Nir. =================================== Nir Dagan Assistant Professor of Economics Brown University Providence, RI USA http://www.nirdagan.com mailto:nir@nirdagan.com tel:+1-401-863-2145
Received on Tuesday, 29 February 2000 15:11:53 UTC