Re: LYNX-DEV lynx, text/html and non-standard suffixes

[David Woolley]

> 
> I wouldn't call it a bug, but yes, this behavoir is visible in Netscape as
> well. I used to think index.html~ was URL syntax for seeing the source

This will be because the server defaulted to text plain.  The real problem
is MSIE, which seems to try to second guess the types of file, based on
contents, and possibly extension - presumably on the basis that servers
are likely to be misconfigured more often than the guess is wrong.  It does,
though mean you can't serve anything that starts like HTML as plain text.

> file. Of course, it was really just a emacs back-up copy, and since the
> extension wasn't htm or html, netscape viewed it as text. Is it standard
> for http to give out the mime type? And are these a reliable way for
> browsers to determine the viewing method? I don't know the answers here.

It is required for HTTP to give out the MIME type (except for the more or
less obsolete HTTP 0.9, which has no headers, and for which anything fetched
with A is taken as HTML and anything fetched with IMG according to the 
extension (I think it pre-dated images)).  Location or Content-Type are
about the only headers that you can't do without in CGI scripts (Location
for redirects).

It is also required that browsers honour the MIME type, and Lynx certainly
used to do this.

I tend, therefore, to suspect that it is the server that is misconfigured,
and has been verified with MSIE which will see the initial SGML markup
and override the declared MIME type (even if the declared type is right!).


(A variation on this for MSIE 3 is that any unrecognised file which
appears to be binary will be prompted as application/octet-stream in the
save/execute dialogue box, even when the server has sent a more specific
application type.)

At least in the past, the only times when Lynx takes note of the extension
is for FTP and local file accesses.


(What I keep seeing in this list is the application of Murphy's law: if
something can be done wrong it will be done wrong.  Mass market browser
designers seem to work on the principle that a bad HTML construct tolerated
or second guessed makes their product look better and reduces their support
costs.  Unfortunately, the result is that too many people take advantage
of the tolerance without ever realising they are doing anything wrong.)
;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;