- From: Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org>
- Date: Thu, 5 Sep 2002 09:49:33 -0700
- To: "'Fred Bohle'" <Fred.Bohle@neonsys.com>, "'Naresh Agarwal'" <nagarwal@in.firstrain.com>, <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>, "'Diwakar Shetty'" <diwakar.shetty@oracle.com>
The format for forms submission is not in the HTTP specification, it's in the HTML specification. Other forms languages might use different formats and protocols for transmission of forms data. HTML 4.0.1 http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/interact/forms.html#h-17.13 specifies how different attributes of the FORM element (method, enctype) control how the form data is encoded, at least when the 'action' is a HTTP URI. There are only 3 cases specified: method get, enctype application/x-www-form-urlencoded method post, enctype application/x-www-form-urlencoded method post, enctype multipart/form-data There is no combination of parameters in HTML 4.0.1 defined that will generate combinations of url encoding and form-data. While some forms processors will also accept ';' instead of '&' as a field separator in application/x-www-form-urlencoded, it isn't mandated in HTML 4.0.1. Of course, other kinds of forms are possible, and compatible with HTTP, but not necessarily with different HTTP server's predefined modules for handling HTML forms.
Received on Thursday, 5 September 2002 12:49:38 UTC