Re: HTTP Content-length question...

Henrik Frystyk Nielsen (frystyk@w3.org)
Mon, 8 May 1995 21:58:45 +0500


> >If this is the case then it is a server bug! The Content-Length header
> >should be sent whenever possible in a full response, and it should certainly
> >not have anything to do with the media type in which the object is rendered.
>
> NO, it's not as much of a bug as you might at first suspect.
> Objects which are text/html should really be converted from LF line
> delimiters to CR/LF line delimiters. That takes more work than just a
> quick stat(), which is sufficient for image/gif and audio/au (both of
> which are sent out as-is in binary). It is unfortunate that a number
> of servers are "lazy" and don't "canonicalize" text/html correctly.

This is prefectly OK, as HTTP/1.0 defines its own `canonicalization' of
type `text' and `application' where CR, LF, or any octet sequence defined
by a character set all represent the equivalent of CRLF, though only in the
entity-body!

-- cheers --

Henrik Frystyk frystyk@W3.org
World-Wide Web Consortium, Tel + 1 617 258 8143
MIT/LCS, NE43-356 Fax + 1 617 258 8682
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge MA 02154, USA