- From: Brian Smith <brian@briansmith.org>
- Date: Sun, 17 May 2009 18:56:14 -0500
- To: "'Daniel Stenberg'" <daniel@haxx.se>, "'Jamie Lokier'" <jamie@shareable.org>
- Cc: "'Geoffrey Sneddon'" <foolistbar@googlemail.com>, "'Brian Smith'" <brian@briansmith.org>, "'Julian Reschke'" <julian.reschke@gmx.de>, "'HTTP Working Group'" <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
Daniel Stenberg wrote: > It does beg the question: are implementations doing the comparisons > case sensitively when parsing data in HTTP headers? I know libcurl > certainly doesn't... > > And yeah, I wasn't aware of them being case sensitive either. The specification does say: Recipients of date values are encouraged to be robust in accepting date values that may have been sent by non-HTTP applications, as is sometimes the case when retrieving or posting messages via proxies/gateways to SMTP or NNTP. SMTP and NNTP dates are not case sensitive, so it makes sense to parse these in a case-insensitive manner. But, what does "are encouraged to" mean? Either it should be "are RECOMMENDED to" (which means "SHOULD") or the statement should go. The specification should not use non-RFC2119 language when making recommendations. And, if it is to be "SHOULD", then the grammar should change to allow the other cases (probably by adding an obs-rfc5322-date alternative that references RFC 5322's date). Elsewhere in the document, the grammar reflects what parsers SHOULD accept, and the prose further restricts what implementations may generate. - Brian
Received on Sunday, 17 May 2009 23:56:55 UTC