From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Robert J. Chassell" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Do you understand this? Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:37:44 -0500 (EST) Message-ID: References: <87sm38jyhm.fsf@tapsellferrier.co.uk> Reply-To: bob@rattlesnake.com NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1110210485 31309 80.91.229.2 (7 Mar 2005 15:48:05 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 7 Mar 2005 15:48:05 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 07 16:48:04 2005 Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1D8KLp-0005M6-IC for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2005 16:40:58 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1D8Kfc-0006Tn-FX for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2005 11:01:24 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1D8KcO-0004ws-6g for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:58:04 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1D8KcM-0004w1-05 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:58:03 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1D8KZx-0003pF-OF for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:55:33 -0500 Original-Received: from [69.168.108.225] (helo=rattlesnake.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1D8KLY-0002A6-FQ for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 07 Mar 2005 10:40:40 -0500 Original-Received: by rattlesnake.com via sendmail from stdin id (Debian Smail3.2.0.115) Mon, 7 Mar 2005 10:37:44 -0500 (EST) Original-To: emacs-devel@gnu.org In-reply-to: (message from Jason Rumney on Sun, 06 Mar 2005 23:05:29 +0000) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org X-MailScanner-To: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:34283 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:34283 Thanks to Andreas, Jason, and Nic I think I now understand the rfc2616 HTTP specification a great deal better than before. Perhaps we should add the following to emacs/man/url.texi after the text saying: @node HTTP language/coding @subsection Language and Encoding Preferences HTTP allows clients to express preferences for the language and encoding of documents which servers may honour. Is this now an accurate description? An @samp{Accept:} or @samp{Accept-Charset} statement or @samp{headers} allows you to specify the priority or weighing of the type of statement you would like to accept. In contrast to their precedence in English text, commas separate @emph{bigger} groupings than semi-colons, which are used to prefix weightings or priority values. Priority values go from 0.0 to 1.0, with 1.0 being highest. When a priority or weighting value is not listed the value is presumed to be 1.0. Moreover, an @samp{Accept:} or @samp{Accept-Charset} list need not be in priority or precedence order. @need 800 @noindent Thus, an accept statement such as @smallexample Accept: text/plain; q=0.5, text/html, text/x-dvi; q=0.8, text/x-c @end smallexample @need 1000 @noindent could be reformatted as @smallexample Accept: text/plain; q=0.5, text/x-dvi; q=0.8, text/html ; q=1.0, text/x-c ; q=1.0 @end smallexample @noindent This latter expression shows the list in order from lower to higher priority. Both @samp{text/html} and @samp{text/x-c} are of equal (and highest) priority. When sent in an HTTP request for a resource, the above @samp{Accept:} statement tells the server that the user prefers to either an HTML or text/x-c document. If neither of those reprsentations is available, then DVI is next preference. If none of those three are available, then plain text should be sent. If neither plain text, DVI, HTML nor x-c are available, then the server's response should indicate that it is failing to find a representation that satisfies the request. -- Robert J. Chassell bob@rattlesnake.com GnuPG Key ID: 004B4AC8 http://www.rattlesnake.com http://www.teak.cc