Re: channel4 validator failure [The error was "".]

On Tue, Apr 26, 2005 at 07:45:54PM +0100, J. Grant wrote:

> I tried to validate (http://validator.w3.org/):

> The detected character encoding was "utf8".

> It might be because of:
> 
> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
> 
> I normally write in caps:
> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
> 
> Is that the problem?

No, the <meta> tag is a (very) poor mans way to specify HTTP headers,
and real HTTP headers always take precedence. If I request those
headers I get:

[david@cyberman ~/]$ lynx -head -dump "http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=67"
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 17:59:16 GMT
Server: Apache
Set-Cookie: JSESSIONID=CuP90nVOjbVQCzSrtM83cXtk2zcHTWTOiIVy29ZWnlOorhYCr1FZ!616
296125!c4wlgnode001!8888!-1; path=/
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=81
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: ??/html; charset=UTF8
Set-Cookie: NSC_d43e13d40050=c0a808170050;path=/

Note the Content-Type header. 

The content type should be "text/html" but comes out as "??/html"
where "??" are characters that my terminal appears to have decided
mean "Ctrl+End". The character encoded is specified as "UTF8" and is
missing the "-"

If I repeat the request, the "??" part of the content type comes out
as something different every time. Something is *very* broken with
either the JSP script or the server.
 
> In addition, could a clearer error message be displayed by the validator?

Could you make a suggestion?

-- 
David Dorward                                      http://dorward.me.uk

Received on Tuesday, 26 April 2005 19:02:41 UTC