Re: Delta Compression and UTF-8 Header Values

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In message <CABP7Rbd7bck4czG9c84hLeAHMnbeqb1mYhS+-DKKtZYEyia=6A@mail.gmail.com>
, James M Snell writes:
>On Fri, Feb 8, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@phk.freebsd.dk> wrote:

>>>So the question is: do we want to allow UTF-8 header values?
>>
>> Jim Gettys famously laid down some principles for X11 development,
>> number 1 and 3 of which are:
>>
>>         1.Do not add new functionality unless an implementor cannot
>>           complete a real application without it.

>AFAIC, the main motivation for allowing UTF-8 headers is to reduce
>(and *eventually* eliminate) the need for
>punycode/pct-encoding/B-codec/Q-codec/RFC5987.

I guess the relevant question then is: Are these headers where it
is necessary for HTTP entities to understand the value (ie:
"Cache-Control", "Location" etc, ) or headers which are just
transported transparently from end to end ("X-FOObar", "Cookie"
etc.)

In the latter case, supporting UTF-8 is merely a matter of letting
another bit through per byte, in the former case it opens a major
bucket of worms IMO.

-- 
Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
phk@FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.

Received on Friday, 8 February 2013 19:51:02 UTC