Re: [XHR] XMLHttpRequest.send("")

On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 9:00 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:

> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 4:15 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc> wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 4:11 PM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 3:58 PM, Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org> wrote:
> >>> On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 5:50 PM, Jonas Sicking <jonas@sicking.cc>
> wrote:
> >>>> Is it more surprising than that
> >>>>
> >>>> xhr.send(hasSomethingToSend() ? getTheThingToSend() : "");
> >>>>
> >>>> sets the Content-Type header even when no body is submitted?
> >>>
> >>> That's exactly what I would expect.  A body that happens to have a zero
> >>> length is still valid text/plain data.
> >
> > I'm not sure everyone is sharing that expectation.
> >
> >>> If you want to omit Content-Type in the above case, then you should
> write:
> >>>
> >>> xhr.send(hasSomethingToSend() ? getTheThingToSend() : null);
> >>
> >> Or, of course:
> >>
> >> if(hasSomethingToSend())
> >>  xhr.send(getTheThingToSend());
> >
> > That isn't terribly useful if you're trying to get a response...
> >
> > If I'm the only one who prefer the other behavior then we should stick
> > to what the spec already says. I'll make sure Gecko maintains that
> > behavior as we implement our new WebIDL bindings.
>
> I got the following feedback from the WebIDL implementers:
>
> One note, though.  If we do want the current behavior, then I think
> that it would make sense to change the IDL for send() to:
>
>  void send(ArrayBuffer data);
>  void send(Blob data);
>  void send(Document data);
>  void send(optional DOMString? data = null);
>  void send(FormData data);
>
> and change the text that currently says "If the data argument has been
> omitted or is null" to "If the data argument is null". That will make
> it much clearer to someone reading the IDL that passing nothing has
> the same behavior as passing null.
>
> / Jonas
>
>
This makes sense.  I too am of the opinion that "" is text/plain even if
empty and ought to be distinguishable.  However I can see your point Jonas
since "" is falsy.