"Robert J. Chassell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Jason Rumney rightly noted that > > In the Emacs manual, we need to explain how the user configures > this in Emacs. Describing what RFC2616 says is not very useful > ... > > Good point. How about putting the explanation in a comment in > > emacs/lisp/url/url-vars.el > > just after > > (defvar url-mime-accept-string nil > "String to send to the server in the Accept: field in HTTP requests.") > > ? Or perhaps in the `Commentary:' section of > > emacs/lisp/url/url.el > > with some other remarks, too. (I do not know enough to have any idea > what the `other remarks' should say.) > > > Here is the explanation, slightly changed from before, in a format for > an Emacs Lisp library. Please check this wording. I think it is a > little clearer than before. > > > ;; An `Accept:' or `Accept-Charset' statement, or a `headers' as it is > ;; often called, allows you, a client, to specify the priority or > ;; weighing of the type of statement you would like a server to > ;; accept. > ;; > ;; In contrast to their precedence in English text, commas separate > ;; _bigger_ groupings than semi-colons, which are used to prefix > ;; weightings or priority values. Priority values go from 0.0 to 1.0, > ;; with 1.0 being highest. When a priority or weighting value is not > ;; listed the value is presumed to be 1.0. Moreover, an `Accept:' or > ;; `Accept-Charset' list need not be in priority or precedence order. > ;; > ;; Thus, an accept statement such as > ;; > ;; Accept: text/plain; > ;; q=0.5, text/html, text/x-dvi; > ;; q=0.8, text/x-c > ;; > ;; could be reformatted as > ;; > ;; Accept: text/plain; q=0.5, > ;; text/x-dvi; q=0.8, > ;; text/html ; q=1.0, > ;; text/x-c ; q=1.0 > ;; > ;; This latter expression shows the list in order from lower to higher > ;; priority. Both `text/html' and `text/x-c' are of equal (and > ;; highest) priority. > ;; > ;; When a client sends in an HTTP request for a resource, the above > ;; `Accept:' statement tells the server that the user prefers either > ;; an HTML or text/x-c document. If neither of those reprsentations > ;; is available, then DVI is next preference. If none of those three > ;; are available, then plain text should be sent. If neither plain > ;; text, DVI, HTML nor x-c are available, then the server's response > ;; should indicate that it is failing to find a representation that > ;; satisfies the request.
I find this confusing. I understand what you are saying about commas and semi-colons... but I think it is a red herring in terms of better documentation. You seem to be trying to explain the HTTP rfc in an elisp comment. Why can't you just say: ;; An `Accept' or `Accept-Charset' header may be specified in the ;; form described in rfc2616 section 14.1 and 14.2. ;; ;; For example ;; Accept: text/plain; q=0.5, ;; text/html, ;; text/x-dvi; q=0.8, ;; text/x-c Personally, I think it would be better if this was automatic anyway, as was indicated by the doc string in rms' original post. Normally I want Accept-Charset to be sent to an HTTP server based on an automatically computed list from Emacs' available character sets. The ability to configure Accept-Charsets specifically would be a rare requirement and should not be encouraged in elisp programming. Nic _______________________________________________ Emacs-devel mailing list Emacs-devel@gnu.org http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/emacs-devel
