Re: PROPOSAL: content sniffing [#155]

Brian Smith wrote:
> Julian Reschke wrote:
>> Brian Smith wrote:
>>> My suggestion is:
>>>
>>> 1. Remove 3.2.1 completely.
>> I think this goes to far, as it explains the interaction between
>> Content-Encoding and Content-Type.
> 
> It is already explained well enough in 5.5, particularly in the section you
> quoted below. The explanation in 3.2.1 also has the same problem you mention
> below; "Content-Encoding(Content-Type(data))" doesn't make sense when there
> is no Content-Type, especially if there is no default content-type.

Disagreed; I think the concept itself needs to be explained as part of 
Section 3, and not be hidden in the definition of a specific header.

>> Related issue: Section 5.5 currently is phrased as if Content-Encoding
>> only works in presence of Content-Type:
>>
>> "The entity-header field "Content-Encoding" is used as a modifier to
>> the
>> media-type. When present, its value indicates what additional content
>> codings have been applied to the entity-body, and thus what decoding
>> mechanisms must be applied in order to obtain the media-type referenced
>> by the Content-Type header field."
>>
>> It seems to me we should rephrase that as well.
> 
> Additionally, the whole description of Content-Encoding is written
> specifically for HTTP responses (e.g. "request-target", "...the response
> MUST include...".

Indeed.

BR, Julian

PS: Mark, should we fix all of this as part of issue 155, or do we want 
to track this separately?

Received on Thursday, 9 April 2009 15:31:52 UTC