- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1999 17:00:33 PDT
- To: Geoff Macartney <g.macartney@apion-tss.com>
- Cc: http-wg@hplb.hpl.hp.com
> In the recent discussion on this topic I haven't seen a query on the
> text in section 14.23 "Host" of RFC 2616 which says :
>
> "If the requested URI does not include an Internet host
> name for the service being requested, then the Host header field MUST
> be given with an empty value. "
>
> It is the "with an empty value" that confuses me - this seems to
> contradict what is written in section 5.1.2:
> "The most common form of Request-URI is that used to identify a
> resource on an origin server or gateway. In this case the absolute
> path of the URI MUST be transmitted (see section 3.2.1, abs_path) as
> the Request-URI, and the network location of the URI (authority) MUST
>
> be transmitted in a Host header field. "
> [...]
> GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
> Host: www.w3.org
>
> If the text in 14.23 were followed you'd get
>
> GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
> Host:
>
> which would surely be wrong. My understanding from the spec and this
> discussion thread is that it should be possible to identify the host,
> whether by a relative URI plus valid Host value or by an absolute URI
> (plus redundant Host header, which I suppose you could legitimately
> allow to have an empty value in this case?)
>
> Is this one for the errata?
Well, it probably deserves a clarification. What I vaguely recall
is that we were trying to leave room for non-HTTP based proxying,
e.g., where you asked your proxy
GET news:comp.infosystems.www HTTP/1.1
Host:
Clearly not the interpretation you read into it. Does anyone else
recall what we really meant?
Received on Monday, 4 October 1999 17:04:02 UTC