Re: Redirection: "Location" or "Uri" ?

Tony Sanders (sanders@BSDI.COM)
Fri, 14 Jan 1994 10:39:37 -0600


There are quite a few changes in the HTTP spec. Time for a re-read!

> * Location: <url>
[changed to the following by TimBL a few months ago]
> * Uri: <url> String CrLf

What needs to happen is all clients should be changed to support both.
When that happens we should start converting servers to send URI: instead
of Location:. Clients will probably need to support Location: for a long
time, but it's cost is very low (it's really just a special case of URI:).

HTTP SPEC CHANGE REQUEST:
The HTTP spec should be changed to mention Location: as the depreciated
URI: specifier without the vary parameter.

Also "Content-Language:" gives examples "Language: En_US". So is it
Content-Language or just Language. If it's Content-Language: then
it should be Content-Version:. I vote for using a Content- prefix
to reduce namespace conflicts (you still have a few, Content-Length
for example).

URI: was chosen for a generic object location identifier and it includes
the "vary" parameter which allows you to specify things about the object.
For example, you can point to an *exact* object, or an object in which
the "version" varies, or an object in which the "language" varies,
or an object in which the "content-type" may vary.

There are headers to go along with each of the dimension of variability
(namely Language:, Version:, and Content-Type:). Version: isn't fully
spec'ed out yet. Of course, this is an extensible list.

--sanders