RE: any more comments?

This was almost definitely meant for the http-wg list proper, not the list
admin (i.e. me) ... so I'm forwarding it on...

 					-- ange -- <><

					ange@hplb.hpl.hp.com

------- Forwarded Message

Date:    Wed, 23 Aug 1995 13:17:05 -0700
From:    Paul Leach <paulle@microsoft.com>
To:      http-wg-request@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
Subject: RE: any more comments?

I have some comments on making the spec clearer more precise. They 
apply equally to 1.0 and 1.1. I was going to try and make them fairly 
detailed, but that means it takes a while to type up, and I'm still in 
the process of doing that. Since silence at this point would be taken 
for assent, I'm sending this along, even though it is incomplete.

The overall thrust of what I'd like to see: for each method, a list of 
the request header fields that are required, optional, and defaults for 
them, if any; a list of the possible status codes and response header 
fields; and whether of not an entity header is present in either 
direction and its contents if so.

This makes the information for a method much like in an API spec: the 
in arguments, out arguments, and error status codes, and can help make 
things very clear.

Figuring out the above from the current spec is not trivial; one of the 
reasons I don't have a complete set of the above yet is that it takes a 
_very_ close reading to be sure about many of them.

For example, here is my summary table for request header fields, based 
on my reading of the spec.

Field:			Method:
			Get	Head	Post	Put	Delete	Link	Unlink
Accept			Def	Def	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal
Accept-Charset		Def	Def	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal
Accept-Encoding		Def	Def	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal
Accept-Language		Def	Def	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal
Authorization		Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt
From			Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt
If-Modified-Since 	Opt	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal	Illegal
Orig-URI		Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt
Referer			Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt	Opt
User-Agent		Should	Should	Should	Should	Should	Should	Should


Def 	=>	field is optional, has default value if not present
Opt 	=> 	field is optional
Should 	=>	field is strongly suggested to be sent
Illegal	=>	client shouldn't send field; server must ignore if sent

If you think this is a good idea, I'll keep working on the other parts 
that I mentioned above.

Paul
- ----------
] From: Roy Fielding  <fielding@beach.w3.org>
] To:  <netmail!http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com>
] Subject: any more comments?
] Date: Wednesday, August 23, 1995 1:19PM
]
] I didn't get much done over the past four days, so I hope people aren't
] sitting on their comments until the next round.  I'll try to get both
] drafts updated tonight.
]
] Except for the definition of Pragma, I have not had any negative
] comments on the content of the HTTP/1.0 BCP draft.  Does that mean
] we have reached consensus?
]
]
]  ....Roy T. Fielding  Department of ICS, University of California, Irvine USA
]                       Visiting Scholar, MIT/LCS + World-Wide Web Consortium
]                       (fielding@w3.org)                (fielding@ics.uci.edu)
] 



------- End of Forwarded Message

Received on Wednesday, 23 August 1995 13:27:53 UTC