- From: Geoff Macartney <g.macartney@apion-tss.com>
- Date: Thu, 30 Sep 1999 14:21:17 +0100
- To: http-wg@hplb.hpl.hp.com
In the recent discussion on this topic I haven't seen a query on the
text in section 14.23 "Host" of RFC 2616 which says :
"If the requested URI does not include an Internet host
name for the service being requested, then the Host header field MUST
be given with an empty value. "
It is the "with an empty value" that confuses me - this seems to
contradict what is written in section 5.1.2:
"The most common form of Request-URI is that used to identify a
resource on an origin server or gateway. In this case the absolute
path of the URI MUST be transmitted (see section 3.2.1, abs_path) as
the Request-URI, and the network location of the URI (authority) MUST
be transmitted in a Host header field. "
[...]
GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.w3.org
If the text in 14.23 were followed you'd get
GET /pub/WWW/TheProject.html HTTP/1.1
Host:
which would surely be wrong. My understanding from the spec and this
discussion thread is that it should be possible to identify the host,
whether by a relative URI plus valid Host value or by an absolute URI
(plus redundant Host header, which I suppose you could legitimately
allow to have an empty value in this case?)
Is this one for the errata?
Geoff Macartney
Received on Thursday, 30 September 1999 06:24:57 UTC