Re: [hybi] extension params (was draft-10 questions)

[Julian Reschke <[e-mail]>]

On 2011-08-01 10:27, Julian Reschke wrote:
> On 2011-08-01 02:23, Brodie Thiesfield wrote:
>> All,
>>
>> During the recent IETF meeting the format of the websocket extension
>> header parameters was brought up. The issue being should the header
>> follow the rules of HTTP (allowing quoted strings) or the simplified
>> rules of websocket draft (allowing only tokens).
>
> Yes. In value parameters.
>
> That's not a strict HTTP rule, but doing so would help reusing existing
> parsers.
>
>> ...
>> Since a websocket connection is plain HTTP prior to upgrade, then a
>> server supporting normal HTTP requests on a connection (i.e. not a WS
>> specific server) will already be using its full HTTP parser.
>>
>> It is not possible to determine what is a WS upgrade message until the
>> headers have already been parsed, e.g. the following message is a
>> valid upgrade but that is not known until the last byte is parsed.
>> Additionally, take away the "Upgrade" header from the end and it is a
>> plain HTTP GET with some unnecessary headers.
>>
>> GET /chat HTTP/1.1
>> Host: server.example.com
>> Sec-WebSocket-Key: dGhlIHNhbXBsZSBub25jZQ==
>> Sec-WebSocket-Origin: http://example.com
>> Sec-WebSocket-Protocol: chat, superchat
>> Sec-WebSocket-Version: 8
>> Connection: Upgrade
>> Upgrade: websocket
>>
>> The WS headers have already been parsed by the HTTP parser. Unless the
>> special parsing of the Sec-Websocket-Extension depends solely on the
>> header key, there can be no special parsing. If it does depend on the
>> header key, then won't this require a change to the HTTP spec to
>> introduce the rule that this header key is parsed specially? If it was
>> so defined, then every header key of every HTTP message will need to
>> be examined to see if it requires the simplified parsing.
>  > ...
>
> It does not depend on the header name; if it did it wouldn't be
> implementable at all.
>
> The concern is just that if we do not allow
>
> Sec-WebSocket-Extensions: bar; baz="2"
>
> in addition to
>
> Sec-WebSocket-Extensions: bar; baz=2
>
> then there's a risk of some implementations re-using parser code,
> accepting the latter form, and some not doing so, creating interop
> problems.
>
> SO far I haven't heard back from Ian (who apparently talked to the other
> Ian), but I think it was mentioned in the session that this does affect
> the API. It does not.
> ...

It would be nice to finally get feedback on this one.

Best regards, Julian