Subject: Re: Resolve issue 98?

From: Mark Nottingham <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 14:40:07 +1000

I agree that the original sentence:
> A server that does not support such an extension MAY discard the  
> request body.
was nonsense, but it would be helpful to spell out what a server  
should do if it doesn't support such an extension.

E.g.,

"""An origin server (or proxy server, if Max-Forwards is 0) that does  
not support such an extension SHOULD respond with 415 Unsupported  
Media Type."""

Although, given the sentence we're talking about taking out, this may  
be closer to the original intent:

"""An origin server (or proxy server, if Max-Forwards is 0) that does  
not support such an extension MAY ignore the request body."""

On 31/05/2008, at 1:04 AM, Julian Reschke wrote:

>
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to resolve issue 98 (<http://www3.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/98 
> >, "OPTIONS request body) soon.
>
> The proposed change (<http://www3.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/attachment/ticket/98/i98.diff 
> >) follows Roy's advice that the sentence in question ("A server  
> that does not support such an extension MAY discard the request  
> body.") is just nonsense, and thus should be removed.
>
> BR, Julian
>

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

---

From: Julian Reschke <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:15:48 +0200

Mark Nottingham wrote:
> was nonsense, but it would be helpful to spell out what a server should 
> do if it doesn't support such an extension.
> 
> E.g.,
> 
> not support such an extension SHOULD respond with 415 Unsupported Media 
> Type."""
> 
> Although, given the sentence we're talking about taking out, this may be 
> closer to the original intent:
> 

Both are plausible answers.

It seems that the only thing we can require a server to do is to be 
robust. So either reject the request or ignore the request body.

Of course that makes it tricky to actually *use* a request body in new 
protocols. WebDAV DeltaV solves this by allowing the client to find out 
whether the server understood the request body (see, for instance, 
<http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/rfc3253.html#rfc.section.5.5>).

So if we allow both behaviors (and I think we need to), it's really not 
clear whether we need to state anything here. And, if we do, don't we 
need to repeat this for any method where currently the request body is 
unspecified (GET/HEAD/DELETE...)?

BR, Julian

---

From: Henrik Nordstrom <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:49:38 +0200

> not support such an extension MAY ignore the request body."""

+1

Regards
Henrik