Re: [tlug] Firefox 3.0.1 doesn't respect <meta http-equiv="content-type">

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2008-09-12 18:10 +0900 (Fri), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> Curt Sampson writes:
> 
>  > On 2008-09-12 15:43 +0900 (Fri), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
>  > 
>  > > But the META element *is* a header!!
>  > 
>  > It is patently not. It is part of the document,
> 
> Well, yes, but that document does contains a header used for supplying
> various kinds of metadata.  That's why the elements are called HEAD,
> and BODY!  This is just encapsulation of one protocol in another.

This is not "just encapsulation"; if the inner protocol is modifying the
interpretation of the outer protocol, you have a mess on your hands.

don't expect you to agree
you don't

>  > and in fact, from my quick reading of the standard, is usually
>  > mis-used, and certainly is misused by you in your case (supplying a
>  > charset when the server does not supply one).
> 
> If you're talking about the original file mada.html, then you've
> clearly misread the HTML 4.01 standard.  Please quote chapter and
> verse in support of this strange claim.

Sorry, I didn't read far enough into the spec. It appears that this:

    <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-5"> 

Is actually *not* an attempt to reset the content type, but is
specifying (in a terribly unobvious way) the default character encoding
for the document. Presumably this:

    <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="image/jpeg; charset=ISO-8859-5"> 

is also a valid way of doing it; it's hard to tell, since the semantics
one would naively expect from looking at this are not what it's actually
specified to do.

That it's so easy to be confused by this stuff should be a good
indication that someone screwed up something really bad in the standard,
here.

>  > Your example also is incorrect in this way; the HTML spec
>  > says nothing about MIME via SMTP
> 
> What's incorrect about an example of something that clearly is quite
> prevalent, if bloody annoying, as HTML email?

Well, first of all what's incorrect is you mentioning SMTP, as if it had
anything at all to do with this. It has nothing to do with this.

Second, now that I'm aware that <META http-equiv="Content-Type"> tags
are sometimes *not* anything to do with HTTP headers (or are they? who
really knows?) your example makes a bit more sense, except of course you
didn't even include any META tags. What on earth were you trying to say,
anyway?

>  > The client, it appears, should do nothing, and entirely ignore the META
>  > tags.
> 
> According to the standard, yes.

Nope. I was wrong. From the spec:

    META and default information

    The META element may be used to specify the default information for a
    document in the following instances:

	* The default scripting language.
	* The default style sheet language.
	* The document character encoding.

    The following example specifies the character encoding for a
    document as being ISO-8859-5

    <META http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-5"> 

It's not stated what the relationship is between this use and the HTTP
header modification use. What a crock.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974   
Mobile sites and software consulting: http://www.starling-software.com