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Re: FW: Digest mess

From: Joel N. Weber II <devnull@gnu.org>
Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 20:34:06 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199801010134.UAA07226@melange.gnu.org>
To: john@math.nwu.edu
CC: mogul@pa.dec.com, ietf-http-wg@w3.org, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
   Right now I suspect that most
   servers contain routines for decoding base64, but not encoding and most
   clients have routines for encoding and not decoding.

If clients support data: urls, they have to be able to decode base64.
The implentation of base64 is fairly simple; I've seen a 24 line
implmentation of the decoder in the `awk' language.

   If we imagine a day when Basic no longer exists there will be no
   need for base64 in server or client.

I doubt base64 will ever stop existing.  It will probably always be
present for backwards compatibility.  Servers could stop supporting it
(most web servers I use already don't use it, since the info on them is
publicly accessible), but a client might as well keep code that supports
it, in case a user ever needs it.
Received on Wednesday, 31 December 1997 20:34:26 UTC

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