Re: parameter quoting - LC comment on draft-nottingham-http-link-header-07.txt

Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de> Thu, 21 January 2010 15:08 UTC

Return-Path: <julian.reschke@gmx.de>
X-Original-To: apps-discuss@core3.amsl.com
Delivered-To: apps-discuss@core3.amsl.com
Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by core3.amsl.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2B4FC3A697E for <apps-discuss@core3.amsl.com>; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:08:44 -0800 (PST)
X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at amsl.com
X-Spam-Flag: NO
X-Spam-Score: -5.051
X-Spam-Level:
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-5.051 tagged_above=-999 required=5 tests=[AWL=-2.452, BAYES_00=-2.599]
Received: from mail.ietf.org ([64.170.98.32]) by localhost (core3.amsl.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id k0lLYX+Mx+9k for <apps-discuss@core3.amsl.com>; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:08:43 -0800 (PST)
Received: from mail.gmx.net (mail.gmx.net [213.165.64.20]) by core3.amsl.com (Postfix) with SMTP id BC49228C111 for <discuss@apps.ietf.org>; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:08:42 -0800 (PST)
Received: (qmail invoked by alias); 21 Jan 2010 15:08:37 -0000
Received: from mail.greenbytes.de (EHLO [192.168.1.105]) [217.91.35.233] by mail.gmx.net (mp014) with SMTP; 21 Jan 2010 16:08:37 +0100
X-Authenticated: #1915285
X-Provags-ID: V01U2FsdGVkX1/qQVFqGNLqDdK563aYOJ62waU+6ZvJAF1xqVOOUc 69+5pOjxXoShJ5
Message-ID: <4B586DF0.9010201@gmx.de>
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 16:08:32 +0100
From: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; de; rv:1.8.0.4) Gecko/20060516 Thunderbird/1.5.0.4 Mnenhy/0.7.4.666
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: mjb@asplake.co.uk
Subject: Re: parameter quoting - LC comment on draft-nottingham-http-link-header-07.txt
References: <20100119053002.5CD613A683B@core3.amsl.com> <E4FF7733-D744-4AC3-AB99-66A12868E4CE@mnot.net> <4B56E27D.800@gmx.de> <4B585B06.1040704@gmx.de> <7a2269961001210701t15ea51cdmf48cc696282c44b6@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7a2269961001210701t15ea51cdmf48cc696282c44b6@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Y-GMX-Trusted: 0
X-FuHaFi: 0.70999999999999996
Cc: Apps Discuss <discuss@apps.ietf.org>, HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
X-BeenThere: apps-discuss@ietf.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9
Precedence: list
List-Id: General discussion of application-layer protocols <apps-discuss.ietf.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss>, <mailto:apps-discuss-request@ietf.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/apps-discuss>
List-Post: <mailto:apps-discuss@ietf.org>
List-Help: <mailto:apps-discuss-request@ietf.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/apps-discuss>, <mailto:apps-discuss-request@ietf.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:08:44 -0000

Mike Burrows wrote:
> Hi Julian (and all),
> 
>     Which made have a closer look at existing parameters (sorry for not
>     bringing this up earlier):
> 
>                         | ( "type" "=" type-name "/" subtype-name )
> 
>     I believe this *definitively* needs quoting, as "/" is a separator
>     character in HTTP and thus can not appear in a token.
> 
> 
> But is 'type-name "/" subtype-name' a token?  I didn't interpret as such 
> - in fact I assumed (perhaps erroneously) that it was in fact two tokens 
> separated by "/".
> 
> Regards,
> Mike
> ...

You are right, it's not. But, in general, parameter values either take 
tokens or quoted-strings, so a generic parser of HTTP parameters would 
fail to parse this correctly.

Maybe that's not a big issue in practice, because people use custom 
parser per header field, but it would be good if we could avoid that.

Best regards, Julian