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

["Roy T. Fielding" <[e-mail]>]

On Feb 4, 2011, at 10:51 AM, Adam Barth wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 4, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Remy Lebeau <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [http-state] Is this an omission in the parser rules of
>> draft-ietf-httpstate-cookie-21?
>> From: Adam Barth
>> Date: Fri, February 04, 2011 10:19 am
>> To: Remy Lebeau
>> Cc: [e-mail]
>> 
>>> The draft gives user agents precise
>>> instructions for how to parse all
>>> manner of cookies, including cookies with
>>> values that contain quote characters. That
>>> information is contained in Section 5
>> 
>> I have re-read Section 5 and I do not see its grammar or parsing rules
>> accounting for quoted-string values at all. It only says to remove WSP
>> characters surrounding extracted names and values, and quote characters
>> are not part of the WSP definition. So what am I missing? Where exactly
>> does it say how to unquote a quoted-string used in attribute values?
> 
> Precisely.  It does not say to unquote a quoted-string because that's
> not how cookies work.  The role of the quote character is cookies is
> identical to the role of the "!" character.  That is, neither play a
> special role in the protocol.  Any representations by the contrary by
> 2109 or any other document are fiction and have only caused pain and
> misery in the world.

That may be, but the grammar for server generation of set-cookie
values is clearly wrong because use of DQUOTE in cookie values is
common (roughly 10% of the values in my browser cookie store) and
previously defined, even if we consider DQUOTE to be part of the
value string.  Let's just change the generating grammar for value to
match how cookies are actually parsed and only exclude characters
that are known to cause failures.

....Roy