Re: default return is "text/html"?

Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl
Wed, 13 Jul 1994 21:11:21 +0200


> I'm pretty sure that text/html is the default in one direction (if no header
> is included, then text/html is assumed). MDMA automagically adds
> a Content-Type: text/html if no other typing information is available,
> and I think other servers do the same thing.
>
> Sometimes this is the wrong thing to do, but at least its consistent. The only
> other sensible alternative is to require all html files to have entries in
> in the type-mapping tables, and use text/plain as the default. Since that
> alternative breaks some of our document sets, I decided not to take that
> approach.

The protocol doesn't need to specify what the server chooses if it
doesn't recognize the extension. Your choice is right for your
system. I made our server default to text/plain. No big deal.

The protocol should specify what the client must assume if there is no
Content-type. Here I think text/plain is more appropriate (see my
previous message).

--Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <Guido.van.Rossum@cwi.nl>
<URL:http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Guido.van.Rossum.html>