Re: luasocket: HTTP and multiple headers

[Xavier Wang <weasley.wx@...>]

maybe using a NUL char is better ?

2012/2/13 Matthew Wild <mwild1@gmail.com>:
> On 13 February 2012 12:48, Vladimir Dronnikov <dronnikov@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi!
>>
>> LuaSocket HTTP responses concatenate same-named headers using commas.
>> This makes it practically impossible to reliably split them later in
>> application logic.
>
> Unfortunately it is well within its rights to do so. The HTTP
> specification clearly states that multiple headers are equal to
> comma-separated lists[1].
>
>> Consider vanilla use case: server sets multiple
>> Set-Cookie:
>
> Yes, Set-Cookie. A few implementations quote the date in Expires, but
> I don't believe that practice is widespread. Still, it's not
> *impossible* to parse - you just have to treat the date as everything
> between Expires= and the next ';' [2].
>
>> I see two straight ways to fix that: either to report array-like
>> tables for same-named headers, or concat using a nonce, which itself
>> is reported as a key to returned response table.
>
> Yes, this would be sensible. However I still see the possibilities of
> applications then expecting an array, and then a HTTP server or proxy
> sending a comma-separated list in a single header (proxies can and
> will do this). Therefore it still requires knowledge (that LuaSocket
> doesn't have) of whether a particular header is a list or not.
>
>> Or, how else this problem is solved?
>
> Backwards compatibility with the internet is fun :)
>
> Regards,
> Matthew
>
> [1]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc1945#section-4.2
> [2]: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6265#section-4.1.1
>