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Re: Behaviour with malformed headers

From: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>
Date: Sun, 03 May 2009 19:25:58 +0200
Message-ID: <49FDD3A6.6040104@gmx.de>
To: Geoffrey Sneddon <foolistbar@googlemail.com>
CC: HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Geoffrey Sneddon wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> When a server receives a header (say, for example, a If-Modified-Since 
> header) whose value does not match the grammar (or is otherwise 
> malformed), what should that server do? Should it just ignore that 
> header and pretend it wasn't there, or should it return 400, or should 
> it do something totally different?
> 
> I had a quick look over bis, but I haven't read it that closely, so it 
> is entirely possible that this is already specified.
 > ...

In general, the HTTP doesn't require a specific behavior for malformed 
requests. A server can accept them, or it can reject them with a 4xx 
status code.

BR, Julian
Received on Sunday, 3 May 2009 17:26:39 UTC

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