Re: P1: Content-Length SHOULD be sent

On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 4:58 PM, Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net> wrote:
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> On 28/11/2012, at 6:28 AM, Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com> wrote:
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>> On Nov 26, 2012, at 9:21 PM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
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>>> Currently, p1 says:
>>>
>>>> When a message is allowed to contain a message body, does not have a Transfer-Encoding header field, and has a payload body length that is known to the sender before the message header section has been sent, the sender should send a Content-Length header field to indicate the length of the payload body as a decimal number of octets.
>>>
>>> This unqualified SHOULD leads people to convoluted readings of the spec where Content-Length is required to be sent on a GET request:
>>> https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests/issues/223#issuecomment-10745532
>>>
>>> Proposal:
>>>
>>>> When a message is allowed to contain a body, does not have a Transfer-Encoding header field, and has a payload body length that is known to the sender before the message header section has been sent, the sender should send a Content-Length header field to indicate the length of the payload body as a decimal number of octets, unless the message is a request and the payload length is zero (in which case the Content-Length header MAY be sent).
>>
>> That would be incorrect, so I don't see why it is being suggested.
>> Try it with POST on a valid CGI script and it will result in a
>> parser failure (if not a segfault).
>
> Because the current text reads that you SHOULD send C-L: 0 on a GET.

In the old term of "entity" (since I'm not too sure about the precise
meaning of "payload")

If a GET request doesn't carry an entity, which is usually the case,
RFC2616 doesn't require C-L:0.

Actually C-L:0 must not be sent in this case. If the receiver sees
C-L:0, it means the request carries an empty entity, which means
something different than if the request carries no entity.

>
> How about:
>
>> When a message is allowed to contain a body, does not have a Transfer-Encoding header field, and has a payload body length that is known to the sender before the message header section has been sent, the sender should send a Content-Length header field to indicate the length of the payload body as a decimal number of octets, unless the message is a request and the method does not define any meaning for the body (in which case the Content-Length header MAY be sent).

You probably meant

unless the message is a request **and the payload length is zero** and
the method does not define any meaning for the body (in which case the
Content-Length header MAY be sent).


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> Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/
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Received on Tuesday, 27 November 2012 23:34:40 UTC