Re: Using Content-Encoding and Content-Disposition together

On Wed, 6 Aug 1997, Foteos Macrides wrote:
> Foteos Macrides <MACRIDES@SCI.WFBR.EDU> wrote:
> >koen@win.tue.nl (Koen Holtman) wrote:
> >>[...]
> >>Well, this is not really a case where we have to agree on what the most
> >>correct way is.  19.6.1 documents current practice, it is not
> >>normative, so if anything, it should give hints about what to do with
> >>current browsers.
> >
> >	That section references only RFC 1806, which describes the
> >"attachment" and "inline" disposition types.  My recollection of
> >a long-ago message from Lou is that Netscape based its implementation
> >on the file upload RFC's "file" disposition type.  What is the
> >appropriate disposition type to use in HTTP Content-Disposition
> >headers and META elements, and can information about that be included
> >in 19.6.1?
> 
> 	I tracked down Lou's message (appended) and was remembering
> it correctly.  So, how about some current practice guidance/hints
> about that?
> 
> 				Fote
> 
> Date: Fri, 08 Nov 1996 11:05:40 -0800
> Resent-from: http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
> From: Lou Montulli <montulli@netscape.com>
> Subject: Re: HTTP header suggestion/request
> 
[ ... ] 
> The following use should work when returned from a CGI script:
> 
> Content-disposition: file; filename=foo.exe
> 
> The Navigator only uses the filename parameter, everything
> else in the header is currently ignored.
[ ... ]

RFC 1808 and also draft-moore-mime-cdisp-01.txt say this:

   Disposition parameters are valid for all dispositions.  (In contrast
   to [RFC 1521] content-type parameters, which are defined on a per-
   content-type basis.) Thus, for example, the `filename' parameter
   still means the name of the file to which the part should be written,
   even if the disposition itself is unrecognized.

So it seems that Netscape's client follows the RFC in that regard (or did
so, at the time of writing).

Use of Content-Disposition in file uploads is a different topic, I think.
If a file upload uses this header, it is probably within a 
multipart/form-data structure, and thereby out of scope for the HTTP
protocol.(?)

By the way, is Content-Disposition really a response-header?
It seems to make more sense to say it is an entity-header.

        Klaus

Received on Wednesday, 6 August 1997 21:27:25 UTC