IPP Mail Archive: (no subject)

(no subject)

kugler@us.ibm.com
Wed, 20 Jan 1999 11:16:05 -0700

Scott Lawrence wrote:
Original Article: http://www.egroups.com/list/http-wg/?start=3D8491
> kugler@us.ibm.com wrote:
>
> > The IPP WG would really like clarification on this point: Is the
intent of
> > the HTTP/1.1 spec to say that an HTTP/1.1 server MAY reject any req=
uest
> > without a defined Content-Length? This would imply that a conforma=
nt
> > HTTP/1.1 server MAY reject any request with the "chunked"
transfer-coding.
>
> I don't know who can provide any sort of authoritative response - don=
't
> take mine as being 'from the HTTP WG'; I'm just another HTTP server
> vendor.

Thanks for your reply. I realize there's probably no authoritative ans=
wer
available, but as an HTTP server vendor you probably know more about th=
is
than I do as an printer vendor, so I appreciate your help.

>
> First, I think that the note Harry Lewis sent titled "IPP> Chunking
> Explanation" [1] sums it up pretty well. An HTTP server certainly ha=
s
the
> option of using the "Length Required" code for whatever reason it wan=
ts
> to.
If this is the correct interpretation, then I was misled for a long tim=
e by
the paragraph in section 4.4, "Message Length", that says "All HTTP/1.1=

applications that receive entities MUST accept the =93chunked=94
transfer-coding (section 3.6), thus allowing this mechanism to be used =
for
messages when the message length cannot be determined in advance. " I
think it would be very helpful to have a note or warning added to that
paragraph; perhaps:

All HTTP/1.1 applications that receive entities MUST accept the =93chun=
ked=94
transfer-coding (section 3.6), thus allowing this mechanism to be used =
for
messages when the message length cannot be determined in advance. Note=
:
this does NOT mean that servers must accept HTTP/1.1 requests containin=
g a
message-body with the =93chunked=94 transfer-coding.

> My own judgement would be that a printer design that did not allow fo=
r
> very large inputs of indeterminate length would be a poor one, and as=
a
> result I would not choose an HTTP layer implementation that restricte=
d me
> to CGI.
>
Agreed.

> [1] <872566FF.0013A85F.00@d53mta05h.boulder.ibm.com>
> (Can't seem to find a web-accessible ipp list archive...)

You can find web-accessible ipp list archives at

http://www.pwg.org/hypermail/ipp/

and

http://www.egroups.com/list/ipp/info.html

(BTW, none of my messages to http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com seem to make it =
to
the archives at

http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/

or

http://www.findmail.com/listsaver/http-wg/

Does one have to be subscribed in order to post messages? I thought th=
ere
was some kind of IETF rule against that.)

Carl Kugler
IBM Printing Systems Co.
=