Re: plain text protocol [was: Re: Performance analysis questions]

Andrew Payne (payne@n8kei.tiac.net)
Sat, 04 Jun 1994 12:14:01 -0400


Rick Troth writes:

>> Suppose, in the future, we want to be able to take the md5 checksum of
>> the HTTP headers. If you corrupt the bytes by throwing away whitespace
>> at the end of a line, you defeat such efforts.
>
> You're saying that HTTP is -not- a plain text protocol.
> If it's not a plain text protocol, then GET should have been
>something like (in C):
>
> sprintf(GET_REQUEST,"%c%s",0x01,URL)

What is a "plain text protocol"? If you answer, please be very, very
precise.

HTTP depends on reliable, 8-bit transport. The fact that HTTP has byte
sequences that spell out English words has no implication on other aspects
of the protocol.

-andy