Re: using the type attribute on links

Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net> wrote:

> Considering this, and considering the well-recognised problems
> setting HTTP headers on many Web servers, is it reasonable for
> an HTML implementation to prefer the media type indicated by
> 'type' over that returned with the resource, for purposes of
> dispatch?

I very much hope no implementations do this! There are already enough
problems caused by IE ignoring the Content-Type when it detects a
different filetype through sniffing; I would hate to see the
interpretation of an object depend on how it was referred to as well.

My interpretation was that it could perhaps be used to avoid opening a
new browser window if the UA sees that the likely returned Content-Type
of a link would require a file download instead, or to avoid needlessly
fetching a stylesheet or script written in a language the UA would be
incapable of dealing with. But my interpretation may well be a load of
rubbish of course.

-- 
Andrew Clover
Technical Consultant
1VALUE.com AG

Received on Friday, 19 October 2001 07:04:44 UTC