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Re: Postel's law, exceptions

• To: Joe English <jenglish@f...>
• Subject: Re: Postel's law, exceptions
• From: Amelia A Lewis <amyzing@t...>
• Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 21:59:59 -0500
• Cc: xml-dev@l...
• In-reply-to: <200401150213.i0F2DQo06917@d...>
• Organization: The Mysthical World of Talsever!
• References: <87CE71C5-4646-11D8-81EB-000A95A51C9E@t...><40048CA2.2070609@g...><r02000200-1028-D1176A3A460611D8AD220003937A08C2@[192.168.124.11]><5B1A714A-461A-11D8-8ADE-000A95CCC59E@x...><200401140201.i0E21to01550@d...><200401150213.i0F2DQo06917@d...>

Just a small note.

On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 18:13:26 -0800
Joe English <jenglish@f...> wrote:

[* supplied to indicate absence of the charset parameter from the
Content-type header ]

> [*] Which means either "US-ASCII" or "ISO-8859-1", depending
> on which RFC you take as authoritative.

Actually, you haven't a choice.  RFC 2616 is authoritative for HTTP,
which is not a MIME-compliant protocol.  It just abuses the
MIME-reserved prefix "Content-" and reuses some MIME-defined headers to
carry more-or-less the same information, only with different defaults.

Lack of a charset parameter in the Content-Type header of HTTP always
means ISO-8859-1, and never means US-ASCII.  Lack of a charset parameter
(or of a Content-Type header altogether) in a MIME-compliant protocol
always means US-ASCII.  But HTTP also fails to include a MIME-Version
header (required for MIME compliance) and specifically forbids
Content-Transfer-Encoding.  MIME-compliant protocols may leave
Content-Transfer-Encoding out, but absence implies "7bit".  In HTTP,
required absence means "binary", and because it must not be present, you
cannot send 7bit or 8bit via HTTP, thank you very much (not that you
need to, anyway).

Amy!
(being a MIME pedant, alas)
-- 
Amelia A. Lewis                    amyzing {at} talsever.com
I don't know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own.  It seems rather
like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design something,
or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write.  It should be a
by-product, not a thing in itself.  Otherwise, it's just an ego trip.
               -- Merlin, son of Corwin, Prince of Chaos (Roger Zelazny)

• References:
  • Re: Postel's law, exceptions
    • From: Tim Bray <tbray@t...>
  • Re: Postel's law, exceptions
    • From: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@g...>
  • Postel's law, exceptions
    • From: "Simon St.Laurent" <simonstl@s...>
  • Re: Postel's law, exceptions
    • From: Michael Champion <mc@x...>
  • Re: Postel's law, exceptions
    • From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>
  • Re: Postel's law, exceptions
    • From: Joe English <jenglish@f...>

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