Re: A broken browser

Foteos Macrides (MACRIDES@SCI.WFBR.EDU)
Thu, 02 Jan 1997 19:42:19 -0500 (EST) 

dan@spyglass.com (Daniel DuBois) wrote:
>>	My understanding, so correct me if I'm wrong, is that the
>>q's are preference ratings, so q=0.000 would be lowest preference,
>>not an "I don't want that".  If no wild MIME type is sent, and
>
>In the history of q's, there was a HTTP/1.0 draft that specified
>the algorithm for q's that is now left unspecified (awaiting
>definition, like in the TCN draft).  IIRC, it said q's should be
>multiplied together, and that a q of zero meant 'None acceptable'
>in the literal sense AKA "I don't want that".  I've implemented
>in the past to that kind of mindset, so maybe there are more like
>me out there.  I don't believe a negotiating server should send a
>document that has a q value of 0, and have said so in the past.
>You may have indexing spiders that insist on only retreiving
>text/html and text/plain for instance.

	If a spider sends:

	Accept: text/html, text/plain;q=0.9
	
shouldn't that get it *only* text/html or text/plain, whereas if
a browser sends:

	Accept: text/html, text/plain;q=0.9, */*;q=0.001

that should get it text/html (default q=1.0), if not available
then text/plain, if also not available then anything.

	One shouldn't have to spell out every conceivable MIME
type with q=0 to get only what one indicated in the Accept
header, but simply omit the wild MIME type.


	I just checked the HTTP/1.0 RFC and it says nothing about
quality.  HTTP/1.1 does say it can range from 1 to 0, but doesn't
say that 0 means don't send it.  That seems like a good
interpretation though, if there's consensus about it, so you can
do something like:

	Accept: text/*, text/x-junk;q=0.0
	
and get any text except x-junk.


	I just tried a variety of servers with:
	
	Accept: text/html;q=0.000

and only Apache v1.2b3 dev paid any attention to it (Apache v1.1.1
ignores it, like all the others).  So I guess Apache v1.2b3 has
defined that situation. :) :) :)

				Fote

=========================================================================
 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
 MACRIDES@SCI.WFBR.EDU         222 Maple Avenue, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
=========================================================================