Re: [http-state] Is this an omission in the parser rules of draft-ietf-httpstate-cookie-21?

Adam Barth <ietf@adambarth.com> Fri, 04 February 2011 03:11 UTC

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From: Adam Barth <ietf@adambarth.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:12:54 -0800
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To: Remy Lebeau <remy@lebeausoftware.org>
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Subject: Re: [http-state] Is this an omission in the parser rules of draft-ietf-httpstate-cookie-21?
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On Thu, Feb 3, 2011 at 6:54 PM, Remy Lebeau <remy@lebeausoftware.org> wrote:
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: [http-state] Is this an omission in the parser rules of
> draft-ietf-httpstate-cookie-21?
> From: Adam Barth <ietf@adambarth.com>
> Date: Thu, February 03, 2011 12:18 pm
> To: Remy Lebeau <remy@lebeausoftware.org>
> Cc: http-state@ietf.org
>
>> It's not an omission.  The use of quotation mark for cookie values in
>> RFC 2109 do not reflect how cookie behave in actual use.
>
> Just a minute ago, while logging in to Yahoo webmail, I noticed the
> server issue a cookie that uses quotations, and my IE 8 webbrowser sent
> back 3 cookies that used quotations.  See below.  Quotes in cookies are
> a real-world possibility, so the draft should allow for their presence,
> at least for user agents that parse cookies, if not in origin servers
> that generate them.

I should be more clear.  Quotation marks are not special characters in
cookie values.  They have no effect on how cookies are processed.  Any
use of quotation marks by servers is pure superstition, just like
using a leading "." before the value of the Domain attribute.

Adam