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Re: Worries about content-length

From: David - Morris <dwm@shell.portal.com>
Date: Tue, 9 May 1995 11:01:01 -0700 (PDT)
To: James Gosling <jag@scndprsn.eng.sun.com>
Cc: NED@sigurd.innosoft.com, masinter@parc.xerox.com, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.90.950509105140.8693F-100000@jobe.shell.portal.com>


On Mon, 8 May 1995, James Gosling wrote:

> The "hack" aspect, in my opinion, to the random delimiter scheme comes
> from being less than 100% solid.  Admittedly, the probability of a
> false match can be pushed arbitrarily small, but it cannot be made 0.
> Given a good random number generator, I wouldn't worry about it too
> much, except that it really feels like a bug waiting for a place to
> happen.

Agree!  To the extent that content-length isn't specified.  If it is, and
it isn't correct, it is an error condition. I have a real philosophical
problem with the design of non-deterministic protocols. It is not an
unreasonable burden on HTTP servers to require accurate content-length
nor do I believe it an unreasonable burden on UA to do the same.

Dave Morris
Received on Tuesday, 9 May 1995 11:02:56 UTC

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