HTTP/1.0 and noncompliant servers...

William M. Perry ([email protected])
Wed, 01 Sep 1993 10:21:29 -0500

Hello all,

This is just a simple request for everyone developing/running
HTTP/0.9 servers that are semi-broken.

There are several HTTP servers out there that don't understand
HTTP/1.0 requests, and don't strip off the HTRQ from the GET command.
(Most notably the SLAC searchable index, and the info gateway at
ohio-state)

With the movement to be a problem pretty quick. The line mode browser, lynx, and my emacs
browser all support HTTP/1.0, and soon mosaic will. It will be
annoying and confusing to the users when all of a sudden they can't
access these servers (lynx returns a blank page when trying to access
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu:85/info/dir, same with any http/1.0
browser - it thinks you are trying to access HTRQ.info).

All that is needed is space in a request, not the end of the line.

This will make the transition to HTTP/1.0 much easier - right now I
store a list of 'bad' servers that don't understand HTTP/1.0, but I
don't think that is the right way to go.

Thanks,
Bill P.