Re: Support for gzip at the server #424 (Consensus Call)

On Mar 24, 2014, at 4:36 PM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> On 21 Mar 2014, at 6:01 pm, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de> wrote:
> 
>>>>> I don't think anyone is talking about *limiting* what you can do in HTTP/2 here -- what's being discussed is whether server-side support for GZIP content-coding in requests should be *required*.
>>>> 
>>>> I think it would be good if we (a) encouraged servers to do it, and (b) clarified error handling if you don't.
>>>> 
>>>> 1) Define a status code for "unsupported content-encoding" (plus maybe discovery via a Accept-Encoding header field that can be sent with it)
>>> 
>>> Right now this falls into 415 Unsupported Media Type:
>>> 
>>> """
>>>   The 415 (Unsupported Media Type) status code indicates that the
>>>   origin server is refusing to service the request because the payload
>>>   is in a format not supported by this method on the target resource.
>>>   The format problem might be due to the request's indicated Content-
>>>   Type or Content-Encoding, or as a result of inspecting the data
>>>   directly.
>>> """
>>> 
>>> So, it could be a new status code (that takes "or Content-Encoding" out of the definition of 415), or it could be a header on 415 that further refines its semantics.
>> 
>> Ah. I had forgotten that we added this to the description of 415.
>> 
>> So if we want to go down that route, we could recommend a 415 and in addition elevate "Accept-Encoding" to a response header field that could be used with 415.
> 
> That seems to make sense, but it isn't something specific to HTTP/2, and it's extending the semantics of a HTTP/1 header field. That sounds like a new spec that updates p2-semantics.
> 
> Julian, do you want to sketch that out so people can have a look?

Please, no.  Changing CE transforms the content.  That means it is
destructive unless done with full knowledge of the publication chain
(i.e., how does the origin server know whether the client wants the
representation to be compressed or just the transfer to be compressed?).

You should be talking about transfer encodings and advertised server
settings, not CE.

....Roy

Received on Monday, 24 March 2014 23:49:48 UTC