- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Tue, 7 Sep 1999 16:41:02 PDT
- To: "Josh Cohen (Exchange)" <joshco@exchange.microsoft.com>
- Cc: HTTP Working Group <http-wg@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
You know, I'm still not sure under which situation you
would
a) not require a Host: header to be sent by a client;
(since there are HTTP/1.1 servers that would error
if the Host header were omitted)
b) not require that a server respond with an error if the Host
header were missing (since HTTP/1.1 clients should only
send absolute URIs to proxies.)
Procedurally, since HTTP/1.1 is Draft Standard, the only way
I can think to institute a change such as this would be to write
a separate document, as Proposed Standard, which updates 2616;
I'd suggest:
Omitting Host Header from HTTP/1.1 Requests with Full URI
as a title.
Note that:
1. If Request-URI is an absoluteURI, the host is part of the
Request-URI. Any Host header field value in the request MUST be
ignored.
so a valid request would be
GET http://host.dom/path HTTP/1.1
Host:
and you're saving 7 bytes for the "CRLFHost:" But then, if you're so
concerned about saving 6 bytes, why not also work on encoding the 20 bytes
that comprise "GET http://" and "HTTP/1.1" into something more efficient?
Larry
--
http://www.parc.xerox.com/masinter
Received on Tuesday, 7 September 1999 16:44:40 UTC