Reason-Phrase Null vs Required [from non-member]

Howdy,

RFC2616 section 6 has the following BNF:

Reason-Phrase  = *<TEXT, excluding CR, LF>

While the plain-text says "The reason phrases listed here are only 
recommendations -- they MAY be replaced by local equivalents without 
affecting the protocol"

 From my understanding of "MAY", and from the absence of any mention of 
words like omitted or empty, the plain text implies that the BNF should be:

Reason-Phrase  = 1*<TEXT, excluding CR, LF>

Is an empty reason phrase allowed by the BNF on purpose or is it a typo 
that the 1 (or similar value) is missing?

Since trailing white space is not significant in MIME, the possibility 
of transmitting "HTTP/1.1_200_" (one trailing space) in tact, which is 
the required minimum parsing of the outer BNF, is somewhat uncertain by 
some readings to say the least.

Is there any official clarification of this conflict in the spec?

Robert White,
Casabyte, Inc.

Received on Tuesday, 4 October 2005 02:02:25 UTC