Re: Opaque
Dave Kristol (dmk@allegra.att.com)
Thu, 27 Apr 95 12:34:22 EDT
"Mike Cowlishaw" <mfc@VNET.IBM.COM> said:
> > Dave Kristol wrote:
> > But you might want a separate Opaque: value for each of Session-ID
> > and WWW-Authenticate:. Better to leave them as attributes of a
> > particular header, IMO.
>
> It's certainly true that one could have an 'opaque' field defined,
> usefully, for almost any kind of header (different languages, for
> example, or different dates, or modified by dates, or dependent on
> URI, and so on).
>
> But it's over-heavy to define these as sub-fields of every kind of
> header, rather than sub-classes of opaque data (if the latter really
> are needed).
I have to disagree:
1) Only a few headers need opaque. We're not burdening all, or anywhere
close to all, of them.
2) It's a nuisance for the server to have to collate information from
two different headers. In particular, if Opaque: has pieces that are
labeled for different other headers (if I understand what you're
proposing), then a server must, for example, parse both the Session-ID
and Opaque headers to figure out what's going on. It's much simpler to
keep all the information together and parse a single header.
If you're assuming that there's a relationship between the value of
Opaque for Session-ID and the value for WWW-Authenticate, I think
you're wrong: I don't think they have any connection. Certainly
there's no obligatory connection.
Dave Kristol