Re: Erratum on HTTP_RESPONSE-11 for mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0?

I'm grateful to Francois for stepping me through the ins and outs of 
this rule (off line), and apologise to him for being opaque in my 
understanding - but I now see what he means and agree with his proposed 
erratum.

I'd go further and say that the clause relating to HTTP_RESPONSE-11 
could be better clarified as:

[[ If the HTTP status represents failure (4xx), other than *in any of 
the following cases: i)* the HTTP status is 404, *ii) the HTTP status 
represents* a request for authentication (e.g. 401) or *iii) the HTTP 
status is* 406 *for object elements (but not any other elements)* when 
carrying out the 3.15.1 Object Element Processing Rule, FAIL ]]

Jo

On 03/05/2010 14:49, Francois Daoust wrote:
> Hi BPWG,
>
> This is proposal to clarify the application of the HTTP_RESPONSE-11
> failure message on images in an erratum of the mobileOK Basic Tests 1.0
> recommendation.
>
>
> Context
> -----
> A bit less than two years ago, on our way to finalizing mobileOK, we
> spent some time playing (sigh!) with a section in the spec entitled
> "Object Element Processing Rule":
> http://www.w3.org/TR/mobileOK-basic10-tests/#ObjectElementProcessingRule
>
> For objects that define a type "attribute" set to a content-type not
> supported by the DDC, it is actually quite normal for a server to reply
> with a 406 HTTP status code if the browser still tries to retrieve the
> resource. Mobile browsers do not have to retrieve such objects in
> theory, but the above-mentioned algorithm on object element processing
> kind of ignores the "type" attribute for good reasons that are not the
> topic of this email.
>
> As a consequence, not to trigger an HTTP_RESPONSE-11 on objects
> retrieved by the Checker for testing purpose, one of the last changes we
> made to the spec was to add an exception to the HTTP_RESPONSE-11 message
> that says that 406 status codes received when carrying out the object
> element processing rule should be ignored:
> http://www.w3.org/TR/mobileOK-basic10-tests/#http_response-11
> (I plead guilty for that change, but the change in itself is not the
> problem anyway)
>
>
> Problem
> -----
> The problem is that, in the absence of object elements, with the
> following code, and supposing that the image is only available as a PNG
> image and that the server returns a 406 status code when the mobileOK
> Checker tries to retrieve the image (because of the Accept HTTP field
> set by the mobileOK Checker):
> <img src="bad.png" alt="The great BPWG group" />
>
> ... should HTTP_RESPONSE-11 be triggered?
>
> I would expect it to be the case, because the server cannot serve the
> image in the appropriate format and fails to remove the img tag (as
> opposed to object elements, it is not possible to indicate the type of
> an image using a type attribute), thus requiring a useless HTTP exchange.
>
> Problem is the spec can be interpreted either way, IMO, because the 406
> exception covers the whole object element processing rule which starts
> with:
> [[
> For each img element that has no object element ancestor (other than the
> context node) in this context:
> Treat this image as an Included Resource (and carry out appropriate tests).
> ]]
> In short, the 406 exception seems to apply to img elements as well or
> not, depending on whether you treat images as regular included resources
> before or after the retrieval.
>
>
> Proposal
> -----
> I propose to clarify, in an erratum, that the HTTP_RESPONSE-11
> description should rather read (added text between "*"):
> [[ If the HTTP status represents failure (4xx), other than 404, a
> request for authentication (e.g. 401) or a 406 *for object elements*
> when carrying out the 3.15.1 Object Element Processing Rule, FAIL ]]
>
>
> What do you think?
>
> Francois.
>

Received on Thursday, 6 May 2010 13:57:38 UTC