Re: Multiple header fields with the same field name - unwritten assumption about quoted commas in values?

Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net> Tue, 15 January 2013 23:30 UTC

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From: Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>
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Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:28:37 +1100
Cc: Karl Dubost <karld@opera.com>, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>, Piotr Dobrogost <p@ietf.dobrogost.net>, ietf-http-wg@w3.org
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To: Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com>
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Subject: Re: Multiple header fields with the same field name - unwritten assumption about quoted commas in values?
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We're talking about HTTP/1.x here, not 2.0. We can't retroactively make implementations non-conformant. 

Cheers,


On 16/01/2013, at 10:22 AM, Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 4:09 PM, Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net> wrote:
>> Saying that headers can only be combined under certain circumstances doesn't mean that they're required to be combined.
> 
> It might help to be able to say that all new headers must be
> mergeable.  That is: how can a proxy or what have you, know whether
> it's OK to merge a given header's multiple instances?  And I think the
> answer is as Poul said: you should never do it.  But then shouldn't we
> say so?
> 
> Whatever was the point of this feature in the first place?  Was it a
> form of header compression?  If so, isn't it best to stop merging
> multiple instances of headers and just go with whatever header
> compression scheme we settle on?
> 
> Nico
> --

--
Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/