Re: CUAP 3.1

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Jim Ley wrote:

> In 3.1 it says:
>
> | Content-Type: application/postscript; qs=0.001
> | Content-Encoding: gzip
> |
> | If saved locally, the filename on most computers should be
> | html40.ps.gz for the applications to recognize the file type.
>
> What is the motivation for this, IMO, the UA should save it as a non
> gzip-encoded .ps document, content-encoding should remain at the HTTP level,
> so the user can use the same application that they use to view the HTTP
> loaded document as the file loaded document.

What you propose goes against HTTP requirements/recommendations. To
quote RFC 2616:

   The content-coding is a characteristic of the entity identified by
   the Request-URI. Typically, the entity-body is stored with this
   encoding and is only decoded before rendering or analogous usage.

In other words, Content-Encoding is not an HTTP-level property, it is
a resource property. Transfer-encoding is an HTTP-level property and
your suggestion would work fine for it.

> A user is likely to be confused if they open a URI (say
> http://www.example.org/stuff.html ) with content-type: text/html and
> content-encoding: gzip, in their HTML UA, they then save it locally and they
> can no-longer use their HTML UA to open it.

Two counter-arguments: First, a decent UA should be able to "open" a
compressed document, especially if it saved the document as such.
Second, and perhaps more important, an average user should not know
that the resource is "HTML". The resource should be named
http://www.example.org/stuff to avoid confusion.

Alex.

-- 
                            | HTTP performance - Web Polygraph benchmark
www.measurement-factory.com | HTTP compliance+ - Co-Advisor test suite
                            | all of the above - PolyBox appliance

Received on Tuesday, 28 January 2003 16:50:54 UTC