--- Nick Kew <nick@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Wednesday 01 February 2006 05:41, Skating Jim > wrote: > > > The basis for my comment is that the Apache > > documentation for AddDefaultCharset says: > > > > "This should override any charset specified in the > > body of the response via a META element, though > the > > exact behavior is often dependent on the user's > client > > configuration." > > That's just FYI. What matters is not the Apache > documentation, > but the public internetworking specs: RFC2616 > (HTTP), and the > MIME one whose number I don't recollect without > looking it up. > > So what the apache documentation is really telling > you is how > an Internet-compliant browser works. It qualifies > that by noting > that some browsers may be broken. > > -- > Nick Kew I agree that this is a browser issue, but the W3C HTML 4.01 specification document very clearly specifies that charset attributes in HTML elements take highest priority, followed by Content-Type META tags, followed by HTTP header charsets. The XHTML1.0 specification also gives prioity to META tags over HTTP headers. The HTTP RFC 2616 says in section 3.4.1 that "recipients MUST respect the charset label provided by the sender...". I don't see a real inconsistency with this since its applicability is limited to the HTTP header. The HTTP specification doesn't attempt to make rules about how specific content types might override its settings. Unfortunately it seems many/most browser implementors got scared by the shouting "MUST" and forgot to think about the ramification of ignoring the HTML/XHTML specifications. The "FYI" in the Apache documentation is directly in conflict with the W3C HTML and XHTML specifications because it explicitly says the HTTP header should override HTML META elements. Until browsers improve (better FYI's and HTTP spec verbage might help encourage this), the AddDefaultCharset directive can't be used if Windows-1250 and ISO-8859-2 coexist on the same server. Jim __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --------------------------------------------------------------------- The official User-To-User support forum of the Apache HTTP Server Project. See <URL:http://httpd.apache.org/userslist.html> for more info. To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx " from the digest: users-digest-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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