Re: What is Content-Length?

DM> All future transfer encodings MUST be self-delimiting.

JF> What is the basis of this assertion?

  I believe that he was just noting the fact that given the current
  usage of the Content-Length, that is the way it is.

JF> ... preclude the possibility of ever using
JF> lots of useful transfer encodings to avoid introducing a new
JF> header.

  At this point there are a great many reasons not to introduce a new
  header without a compelling reason - they are called deployed
  implementations.  There is no reason why the definition of a new
  transfer encoding cannot be done in a way that corrects this
  situation, and no benefit in correcting it before that time.

  There are no transfer encodings in 1.1 for which the length is
  ambiguous; we don't need to change the spec now.

  I have already logged this among the caveats we will document in the
  guidelines for extending HTTP.

--
Scott Lawrence           EmWeb Embedded Server       <lawrence@agranat.com>
Agranat Systems, Inc.        Engineering            http://www.agranat.com/

Received on Thursday, 11 December 1997 14:44:14 UTC