Re: Grammar for User-Agent header

On Tue, 17 Jan 1995, Henrik Frystyk Nielsen wrote:

> 
> > The grammar for the User-Agent header currently reads like this:
> > 
> > >       User-Agent      = "User-Agent" ":" 1*( product )
> > >
> > >       product         = token ["/" product-version]
> > >       product-version = 1*DIGIT "." 1*DIGIT
...
> > 
> Sounds fair - what about:
> 
> 	User-Agent      = "User-Agent" ":" 1*( product )
> 	product         = token ["/" token]

Yes, where token is any string of characters which doesn't require URL
encoding *OR* any string of characters inside of quotes.  User-Agent
should be required to be a unique identifier for a particular version
of User-Agent.  The standard should be absolutely relaxed about the
format of the identifer except that it should be allowed to inhibit
proper parsing of subsequent headers.  Might include words to describe
how to insure uniqueness?  Or leave it to follow the course of domain
names.  Or register the unique portion of the ID, etc..

It should be recommended that a human be able to read the string and
relate it to external version control parameters.  

What else matters?

Dave Morris

Received on Tuesday, 17 January 1995 23:23:15 UTC