Structured Field Values for HTTP
draft-ietf-httpbis-header-structure-17
HTTP M. Nottingham
Internet-Draft Fastly
Intended status: Standards Track P-H. Kamp
Expires: September 16, 2020 The Varnish Cache Project
March 15, 2020
Structured Field Values for HTTP
draft-ietf-httpbis-header-structure-17
Abstract
This document describes a set of data types and associated algorithms
that are intended to make it easier and safer to define and handle
HTTP header and trailer fields, known as "Structured Fields", or
"Structured Headers". It is intended for use by specifications of
new HTTP fields that wish to use a common syntax that is more
restrictive than traditional HTTP field values.
Note to Readers
_RFC EDITOR: please remove this section before publication_
Discussion of this draft takes place on the HTTP working group
mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/ [1].
Working Group information can be found at https://httpwg.github.io/
[2]; source code and issues list for this draft can be found at
https://github.com/httpwg/http-extensions/labels/header-structure
[3].
Tests for implementations are collected at https://github.com/httpwg/
structured-header-tests [4].
Implementations are tracked at https://github.com/httpwg/wiki/wiki/
Structured-Headers [5].
Status of This Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.
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Internet-Draft Structured Field Values for HTTP March 2020
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.1. Intentionally Strict Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2. Defining New Structured Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3. Structured Data Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.1. Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.1. Inner Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
3.1.2. Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3.2. Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.3. Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3.3.1. Integers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3.2. Decimals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3.3. Strings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3.4. Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.5. Byte Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.3.6. Booleans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4. Working With Structured Fields in HTTP . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1. Serializing Structured Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1.1. Serializing a List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4.1.2. Serializing a Dictionary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.1.3. Serializing an Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.1.4. Serializing an Integer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.1.5. Serializing a Decimal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.1.6. Serializing a String . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
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