header parsing, trailing OWS

Hi,

in part 1 we currently say:

"The field value MAY be preceded by optional whitespace; a single SP is 
preferred. The field-value does not include any leading or trailing 
white space: OWS occurring before the first non-whitespace character of 
the field-value or after the last non-whitespace character of the 
field-value is ignored and MAY be removed without changing the meaning 
of the header field." -- 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/draft-ietf-httpbis-p1-messaging-07.html#rfc.section.4.2.p.4>

In the current edits, the last 'MAY' is a 'SHOULD', which makes it read

"A field value MAY be preceded by optional whitespace (OWS); a single SP 
is preferred. The field value does not include any leading or trailing 
white space: OWS occurring before the first non-whitespace character of 
the field value or after the last non-whitespace character of the field 
value is ignored and SHOULD be removed without changing the meaning of 
the header field."

I think what we really should say is that they MAY be removed before 
passing the field-value to a specific header parser, thus definitions of 
headers MUST NOT make the presence of trailing/leading whitespace 
semantically significant.

BR, Julian

Received on Thursday, 24 September 2009 15:03:34 UTC