- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com>
- Date: Wed, 8 Mar 2023 09:39:16 -0800
- To: Lucas Pardue <lucaspardue.24.7@gmail.com>
- Cc: HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
This misuses the term identity, which was a poor use of a word in the first place to refer to a transformation that doesn't change the content. In any case, "identity" refers to the coding, not the content. It doesn't help to use the same term for two different things in HTTP. If we want to send this field in a message with Content-Encoding applied, then it would be easier understood as Decoded-Digest or Digest-After-Decoding or Want-Unencoded-Digest (or maybe just Digested and WUD -- I hate long field names). Multiple digests should not be sent in the same message unless their digests are different. Transforming the message content to remove the outer coding would necessitate replacing the field values as well, as in replacing the Content-Digest field-value with the Identity-Digest's value and removing Identity-Digest. I know it's a cute example, but in my experience the readers tend to implement the examples in practice even when they are nonsensical and a waste of network bandwidth. Also, you have not considered multiple content codings yet, which would (rarely) consist of a private encoding enclosed within a compression: Content-Encoding: bzerp, gzip I would expect, in that case, for both encodings to be decoded before the identity-digest is applicable. YMMV. Cheers, ....Roy
Received on Wednesday, 8 March 2023 17:39:43 UTC