Re: [XHR] Redirects

On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 2:56 AM, Boris Zbarsky <bzbarsky@mit.edu> wrote:
> On 9/15/10 2:47 AM, Boris Zbarsky wrote:
>>
>> So it's possible that the original behavior was just an oversight that
>> then got copied. Someone with access to a browser version control system
>> from before 1998 would need to look to make sure...
>
> It's also possible that no UA implementor was willing to implement the MUST
> NOT requirements below:
>
>  If the 301 status code is received in response to a request other
>  than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect the
>  request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might
>  change the conditions under which the request was issued.
>
> and
>
>  If the 302 status code is received in response to a request other
>  than GET or HEAD, the user agent MUST NOT automatically redirect
>  the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might
>  change the conditions under which the request was issued.
>
> (RFC 2616 sections 10.3.2 and 10.3.3).  How do you expect this to work in
> the XHR context?  Is "user" for purposes of those two clauses the script
> that triggered the XHR, or the person actually represented by the user-agent
> (browser, say) in question?
>
> Then again, I guess they already ignore that MUST NOT clause for 307
> redirects...  So maybe they would just do the same thing here.  Gotta love
> specs that really can't be implemented as written in sane ways.

There's an open issue in the HTTPbis WG to remove that nonsense:

http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/238

If you're interested in this topic, I'd encourage you to share your
perspective with the httpbis working group.

Adam

Received on Thursday, 16 September 2010 07:56:23 UTC