Subject: FW: character encoding.

From: "Jim Whitehead" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2002 12:38:47 -0700

Accidentally caught by the spam filter.

- Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Andy Rayne [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2002 3:52 AM
To: [email-masked]
Subject: [Moderator Action] character encoding.

Hi,

First how do i join the list, just came accross it.

Second i have a java implementation of a webdav server running on resin
(webserver). Resin allows one to specify character encoding in the conf
file. However when used with other webservers or OS ( using windows just
now) it isnt possible to set the character encoding. Therefore when my
windows explorer client sends the encoded request the server doesnt
recognise it and spits out a bad request 400. DO i now have to go and
implement the character encoding too?

Is this even the correct list to ask this question.

Cheers

Andy

---

From: Taisuke Yamada <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2002 18:37:38 +0900

Hi.

I assume you're having a problem with charset encoding in HTTP
request-line and HTTP header. I don't know if this encoding issue
has been discussed in the past, but I believe the general consensus
is to use UTF-8 in any case.

I think there's some notes on this issue in rfc2396 and rfc2277 (can
anyone correct me?). As there is no way to transmit encoding
information for HTTP request-line and HTTP header, this seems to be
the only solution.

Of course, the problem is that not all clients/servers actually
follow this scheme - older implementation tends to transmit (or
expects to receive) whatever the encoding it uses locally. This
obviously causes interoperability problem when non-ASCII named
resource is used. I currently get around the problem by plugging
an encoding detection/conversion filter in the server I'm running.

This problem was not apparent (or critical) before WebDAV, because
it was not a common practice to give non-ASCII URL to web browsers.
Only after the WebDAV, the Web become writable as "filesystem", and
people started to use non-ASCII filenames.

> Second i have a java implementation of a webdav server running on
> resin (webserver). Resin allows one to specify character encoding
> in the conf file. However when used with other webservers or
> OS (using windows just now) it isnt possible to set the character
> encoding. Therefore when my windows explorer client sends the
> encoded request the server doesnt recognise it and spits out a bad
> request 400. DO i now have to go and implement the character
> encoding too?

--
Taisuke Yamada <[email-masked]>
Internet Initiative Japan Inc., Technical Planning Division

---

From: Taisuke Yamada <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 19:28:21 +0900

Hi.

Regarding the use of WebDAV in i18n environment, I am assuming
that WebDAV spec will be updated (hopefully soon) to refer IRI
and CHARMOD. IRI defines i18n-ized format of URI and CHARMOD
defines how you can define/implement a spec so it can be inter-
nationally deployed.

Am I correct, or is this not a decided issue yet?

My current concern is that these specs are taking longer than
expected (no surprise as they're tackling complex problem).
So by the time they arrive, it could turn out that existing
implementations (with glitches in i18n) reached a critical mass
and simply don't go away after all. Number of implementations
supporting UTF-8 is growing, but even some of them are still not
interoperable as Unicode has its own issues also (see CHARMOD).

It's probably just a matter of time, but the need for a updated
WebDAV spec is really wanted. I believe delay in IRI and CHARMOD
would impact WebDAV heavily as people frequently use i18n URI.

How does it sound to go ahead and clarify support of at least
part of the IRI spec in advance, so actual implementation
wouldn't be so far away from CHARMOD/IRI when set? I think
clarifying URI (and its partial representation) to be %HH encoded
form of normalized UTF-8 is a key issue here.

References:

    [IRI] http://www.w3.org/International/O-URL-and-ident
          http://www.w3.org/International/2002/draft-duerst-iri-00.txt
[CHARMOD] http://www.w3.org/TR/charmod/

Regards,