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Results of Questionnaire ISSUE-126: Requirement to break RFC 2616 compliance - Straw Poll for Objections

The results of this questionnaire are available to anybody.

This questionnaire was open from 2011-03-02 to 2011-03-10.

4 answers have been received.

Jump to results for question:

  1. Objections to the Change Proposal to parse backslash escapes in Content-Type headers in elements in a HTTP compliant manner
  2. Objections to the Change Proposal to not have special handling for backslash

1. Objections to the Change Proposal to parse backslash escapes in Content-Type headers in elements in a HTTP compliant manner

We have a Change Proposal to parse backslash escapes in Content-Type headers in "meta" elements in a HTTP compliant manner. If you have strong objections to adopting this Change Proposal, please state your objections below.

Keep in mind, you must actually state an objection, not merely cite someone else. If you feel that your objection has already been adequately addressed by someone else, then it is not necessary to repeat it.

Details

Responder Objections to the Change Proposal to parse backslash escapes in Content-Type headers in elements in a HTTP compliant manner
Philip Jägenstedt The proposal aims to align processing with the HTTP spec in order to remove a willfull violation, but does not achieve that, even assuming that the sibling proposal for ISSUE-125 is adopted.

The "algorithm for extracting an encoding from a Content-Type" should be applied to the value of the content="" attribute on <meta http-equiv="Content-Type">. In order to claim conformance with HTTP, that value should be processed like the media-type production in RFC 2616:

media-type = type "/" subtype *( ";" parameter )
type = token
subtype = token

parameter = attribute "=" value
attribute = token
value = token | quoted-string

quoted-string = ( <"> *(qdtext | quoted-pair ) <"> )
qdtext = <any TEXT except <">>
quoted-pair = "\" CHAR

The critical part of the suggested change is "Return the encoding corresponding to the backslash-unescaped string between this characters and the next earliest occurrence of this character." This is more liberal than the quoted-string production, allowing e.g. content='text/html;charset="UTF-8"garbage'.

Furthermore, earlier steps of the algorithm are nowhere near close to the HTTP spec, simply finding the first occurence of "charset", allowing e.g. content='garbagecharset=UTF-8'.

Only if the algorithm as a whole matches exactly the media-type production will the spec not require "recipients to parse Content-Type headers in <meta> elements in a way breaking HTTP's parsing rules." Since the change proposal does not achieve that, I object to its adoption.
Anne van Kesteren I object to this change proposal because we are in the process of changing Opera's behavior here (and Safari is as well) precisely because of compatibility.
Julian Reschke
Theresa O'Connor We believe this change would harm compatibility and do not intend to implement it.

2. Objections to the Change Proposal to not have special handling for backslash

We have a Change Proposal to not have special handling for backslash.

Keep in mind, you must actually state an objection, not merely cite someone else. If you feel that your objection has already been adequately addressed by someone else, then it is not necessary to repeat it.

Details

Responder Objections to the Change Proposal to not have special handling for backslash
Philip Jägenstedt
Anne van Kesteren
Julian Reschke I'm ok with this as long as the spec stops claiming this is needed for compatibility (as no legal charset name contains a backslash anyway), and it's also made clear that this applies to meta/@http-equiv only. (see also comments on ISSUE-125, plus my feedback to Philip's objection in http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2011Mar/0140.html, plus the subsequent thread).
Theresa O'Connor

More details on responses

  • Philip Jägenstedt: last responded on 2, March 2011 at 21:37 (UTC)
  • Anne van Kesteren: last responded on 3, March 2011 at 14:53 (UTC)
  • Julian Reschke: last responded on 10, March 2011 at 18:01 (UTC)
  • Theresa O'Connor: last responded on 11, March 2011 at 00:19 (UTC)

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