Subject: request for feedback: RFC2616 BNF name collisions

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 14:08:12 +0100

Hi,

continuing work on the BNF...:

There are two name collisions in the RFC2616 BNF that we need to get rid of:

- "trailer" (as occurring in chunked encoding) vs "Trailer" (the header 
name)

- "host" (as imported from RFC2396) vs "Host" (the header name)

I currently have a slight preference for not changing the rule names for 
headers (and to keep them consistent), which would require renaming 
"trailer" and "host" to something else.

Alternatively we could rename the rule names for the headers by adding a 
common prefix or postfix.

Feedback appreciated (in particular suggestion for an alternate rule 
name for "host" as defined in RFC2396/3986).

BR, Julian

---

From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 18:06:21 +0000

Julian Reschke wrote:

> - "trailer" (as occurring in chunked encoding) vs "Trailer" (the 
> header name)
>
> - "host" (as imported from RFC2396)

On a related note: should this be imported from RFC 3986 instead?

> vs "Host" (the header name)
>
> I currently have a slight preference for not changing the rule names 
> for headers (and to keep them consistent), which would require 
> renaming "trailer" and "host" to something else.
>
> Alternatively we could rename the rule names for the headers by adding 
> a common prefix or postfix.

IMHO, that would be slightly better if you want to reference RFC 2396 or 
RFC 3986. It would also prevent any future conflicts.

But you can also do something like the following for the <host>:

 uri-host = <host as defined in RFC 3986>

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:20:58 +0100

> On a related note: should this be imported from RFC 3986 instead?

Of course; this applies to all URI-related productions. I just try to 
fix one thing at a time :-)

> uri-host = <host as defined in RFC 3986>

Funny enough right now by edits say:

host-component = <host, defined in [RFC2396], Section 3.2.2>

> ...

BR, Julian

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From: Alexey Melnikov <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:33:25 +0000

Julian Reschke wrote:

>>> Alternatively we could rename the rule names for the headers by 
>>> adding a common prefix or postfix.
>>
>> IMHO, that would be slightly better if you want to reference RFC 2396 
>> or RFC 3986. It would also prevent any future conflicts.
>>

Too bad that ABNF doesn't allow for namespaces ;-).

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:43:15 +0100

> Too bad that ABNF doesn't allow for namespaces ;-).

I already hear the WHATWG crowd scream :-)

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From: "Frank Ellermann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 07:38:44 +0100

> I already hear the WHATWG crowd scream :-)

Don't they say "ping" when they "scream" ? <gd&r>

+1 for <uri-host> or maybe <hostname>.

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 09:46:32 +0100

> +1 for <uri-host> or maybe <hostname>.  

I considered hostname, but it may be confusing because the URI spec use 
it for *named* hosts, as opposed to IP-literal / IPv4address.

A prefix probably works best, now leaning to "uri-".

BR, Julian

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From: Geoffrey Sneddon <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Nov 2007 22:51:09 +0000

> I already hear the WHATWG crowd scream :-)

You assume everyone in the WHATWG holds the same opinion, and that we  
feel the same about namespaces in programming languages as we do in  
markup langauges: I can say with utter most certainty that in at least  
mine and Ian Hickson's case this is not true: both of us would like to  
see namespaces in something like ABNF.

--
Geoffrey Sneddon
<http://gsnedders.com/>