Re: Several Content-Encodings

> That is, the ordering *is* defined if it appears in a single
> Content-Encoding header, but the spec leaves some margin if
> you have several ones that you want to collapse.

I wrongly assumed that, because the two statements were right next
to each other, readers would understand that the second is an exception
to the first.  However, seeing the mass of confusion even among people
who understand the protocol, I suggest the following wording change
from draft 01, section 4.2:

================================================================
*** draft-ietf-http-v11-spec-01.txt	Mon Feb 12 16:37:14 1996
--- order.txt	Fri Apr 12 08:03:29 1996
***************
*** 1464,1483 ****
  
!    The order in which header fields are received is not significant. 
!    However, it is "good practice" to send General-Header fields first, 
!    followed by Request-Header or Response-Header fields prior to the 
!    Entity-Header fields.
  
     Multiple HTTP-header fields with the same field-name may be present 
     in a message if and only if the entire field-value for that header 
     field is defined as a comma-separated list [i.e., #(values)]. It 
     must be possible to combine the multiple header fields into one 
     "field-name: field-value" pair, without changing the semantics of 
     the message, by appending each subsequent field-value to the first, 
!    each separated by a comma.
  
--- 1464,1485 ----
  
!    The order in which header fields with differing field names are
!    received is not significant. However, it is "good practice" to send
!    General-Header fields first, followed by Request-Header or
!    Response-Header fields, and ending with the Entity-Header fields.
  
     Multiple HTTP-header fields with the same field-name may be present 
     in a message if and only if the entire field-value for that header 
     field is defined as a comma-separated list [i.e., #(values)]. It 
     must be possible to combine the multiple header fields into one 
     "field-name: field-value" pair, without changing the semantics of 
     the message, by appending each subsequent field-value to the first, 
!    each separated by a comma.  Thus, the order in which multiple header
!    fields with the same field-name are received may be significant to
!    the interpretation of the combined field-value.
  
================================================================


 ...Roy T. Fielding
    Department of Information & Computer Science    (fielding@ics.uci.edu)
    University of California, Irvine, CA 92717-3425    fax:+1(714)824-4056
    http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/

Received on Friday, 12 April 1996 08:29:57 UTC