According to RFC3986 (URI),
The query component is indicated by the first question
mark ("?") character and terminated by a number sign ("#") character
or by the end of the URI.
And specifies what characters are allowed inside. That's generic URI.
In daily interaction with various HTTP/Web servers, in URI http scheme, we're seeing query components represented as key=value pairs separated by & sign. RFC7230 (HTTP/1.1) says nothing about it, just that the content of the query component corresponds to RFC3986 generic definition.
The only standard defining said key-value pairs is HTML 4.01 while talking about content type application/x-www-form-urlencoded. It's also the only standard saying + should be treated as Space character in the query component.
However, as far as I could dig up in the specs, Content-Type header only applies to the message body, not its URI. And when, as an experiment, I'm googling for "asd zxc" Chrome sends the request /search?q=zxc+asd to Google without specifying said application/x-www-form-urlencoded content type at all.
Is it just conventional or am I missing something?
For example, if for whatever stupid reason I configured my server to parse the URL by splitting the queries by the "^" symbol (escaped if necessary) and the "-" symbol instead of the "?" and "&", would I run into any trouble at all apart from a confused user?
Will the browser/HTTP request sent treat it differently in a way that may be detrimental to my up and coming "power minus" business?
? is not arbitrary but defined in the URI RFC section 3.4 Query, I dont' think you can change that.
The Query component internal syntax (how name=value couples are encoded) is not defined by the URI RFC, separators can be defined by other specifications:
& is defined as separator of the application/x-www-form-urlencoded content type by HTML Spec. You may change this aspect supporting for example ; as separator, but you would have in any case to support & for when processing the request produced by an HTML FORM.
I am making a request like so in Fiddler2
User-Agent: Fiddler
Host: asdf.example.com
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded
Content-Length: 0
Key=asdf:qwer
When I click Execute, Fiddler edits the last line to read:
Key=asdf: qwer
Note the additional space.
Why is this happening and could it cause problems with my request?
RFC 2616, 4.2 Message Headers:
Each header field consists
of a name followed by a colon (":") and the field value. Field names
are case-insensitive. The field value MAY be preceded by any amount
of LWS, though a single SP is preferred.
[...]
The field-content does not include any leading or trailing LWS:
linear white space occurring before the first non-whitespace
character of the field-value or after the last non-whitespace
character of the field-value. Such leading or trailing LWS MAY be
removed without changing the semantics of the field value. Any LWS
that occurs between field-content MAY be replaced with a single SP
before interpreting the field value or forwarding the message
downstream.
In other words: leading whitespace is to be ignored for the field value, and a space is even preferred. When you do want to send a space, you'll have to quote the string: Some-Header: " foo".
So it's nice of Fiddler to display (and probably send) it like that, though a custom HTTP server that doesn't expect a space there is faulty and should be repaired.
As for your comment regarding the "invalid header name" error the server returns: an HTTP header is defined as such:
message-header = field-name ":" [ field-value ]
field-name = token
field-value = [...]
As you can see, field-name can only exist of token, which does not include = (as that is a separator).
So the header name Key=asdf you use is invalid and the server throws a 400 Bad Request because of malformed syntax. The more specific Invalid header name you claim to get, sounds like you're running your site in IIS. Change the = to - for example, and you'll see it'll work.
I am reading through the HTTP 1.1 RFCs and I am not able to answer the following question.
We have this header:
Authorization: Basic Qmxvb21iZXJnOnRjbG1lU1JT, Basic
which is causing troubles because Rails 3 authorization parser incorrectly decodes the string because of the "," character. This is very uncommon I know, but we add this using this Apache httpd configuration:
RequestHeader append Authorization "Basic" early
The Apache mod_header documentation says:
The response header is appended to any existing header of the same
name. When a new value is merged onto an existing header it is
separated from the existing header with a comma. This is the HTTP
standard way of giving a header multiple values.
But I don't think it is correct for this Authorization header. The RFC definition does not allow this. But some headers permit comma-separated list. I am not sure if this is a general rule for all HTTP headers.
I am looking for a paragraph in the HTTP 1.1 RFC that prooves my idea this is not correct. I have already found something that is saying "this is valid only for headers that can be separated", but this is not a proof.
Multiple message-header fields with the same field-name MAY be present
in a message if and only if the entire field-value for that header
field is defined as a comma-separated list [i.e., #(values)]. It MUST
be possible to combine the multiple header fields into one
"field-name: field-value" pair, without changing the semantics of the
message, by appending each subsequent field-value to the first, each
separated by a comma. The order in which header fields with the same
field-name are received is therefore significant to the interpretation
of the combined field value, and thus a proxy MUST NOT change the
order of these field values when a message is forwarded.
It really does not make sense, but I am looking for a clear proof.
The answer is in the text you quoted:
"Multiple message-header fields with the same field-name MAY be present in a message if and only if the entire field-value for that header field is defined as a comma-separated list [i.e., #(values)]."
This is not the case for "Authorization".
As far as I know it is allowed by the HTTP spec to set more than one HTTP header with the same name. Is there any use case to do so (from client to server and vice versa)?
HTTP 1.1 Section 4.2:
Multiple message-header fields with
the same field-name MAY be present in
a message if and only if the entire
field-value for that header field is
defined as a comma-separated list
[i.e., #(values)]. It MUST be possible
to combine the multiple header fields
into one "field-name: field-value"
pair, without changing the semantics
of the message, by appending each
subsequent field-value to the first,
each separated by a comma. The order
in which header fields with the same
field-name are received is therefore
significant to the interpretation of
the combined field value, and thus a
proxy MUST NOT change the order of
these field values when a message is
forwarded.
If I'm not wrong there is no case where multiple headers with the same name are needed.
It's commonly used for Set-Cookie:. Many servers set more than one cookie.
Of course, you can always set them all in a single header.
Actually, I think you cannot set multiple cookies in one header. So that's a necessary use-case.
The Cookie spec (RFC 2109) does claim that you can combine multiple cookies in one header the same way other headers can be combined (comma-separated), but it also points out that non-conforming syntaxes (like the Expires parameter, which has ,s in its value) are still common and must be dealt with by implementations.
So, if you use Expires params in your Set-Cookie headers and you don't want all your cookies to expire at the same time, you probably need to use multiple headers.
Update: Evolution of the Cookie spec
RFC 2109 has been obsoleted by RFC 2965 that in turn got obsoleted by RFC 6265, which is stricter on the issue:
Origin servers SHOULD NOT fold multiple Set-Cookie header fields into a single header field. The usual mechanism for folding HTTP headers fields (i.e., as defined in [RFC2616]) might change the semantics of the Set-Cookie header field because the %x2C (",") character is used by Set-Cookie in a way that conflicts with such folding.
Side note
RFC 6265 uses the verb "folding" when it refers to combining multiple header fields into one, which is ambiguous in the context of the HTTP/1 specs (both by RFC2616, and its successor, RFC 7230) where:
"folding" consistently refers to line folding, and
the verb "combine" is used to describe merging same headers.
Combining header fields:
See RFC 2616, Section 4.2, Message Headers (quoted in the question), but searching for the for the word "combine" will bring up special cases.
The above item obsoleted by RFC 7230, Section 3.2.2, Field Order:
A recipient MAY combine multiple header fields with the same field name into one field-name: field-value pair, without changing the semantics of the message, by appending each subsequent field value to the combined field value in order, separated by a comma. The order in which header fields with the same field name are received is therefore significant to the interpretation of the combined field value; a proxy MUST NOT change the order of these field values when forwarding a message.
Note: In practice, the "Set-Cookie" header field (RFC6265) often appears multiple times in a response message and does not use the list syntax, violating the above requirements on multiple header fields with the same name. Since it cannot be combined into a single field-value, recipients ought to handle Set-Cookie as a special case while processing header fields. (See Appendix A.2.3 of [Kri2001] for details.)
Line folding:
From RFC 2616, Section 2.2, Basic Rules:
HTTP/1.1 header field values can be folded onto multiple lines if the continuation line begins with a space or horizontal tab. All linear white space, including folding, has the same semantics as SP. A recipient MAY replace any linear white space with a single SP before interpreting the field value or forwarding the message downstream.
The above section obsoleted by RFC 7230, Section 3.2.4, Field Parsing:
Historically, HTTP header field values could be extended over multiple lines by preceding each extra line with at least one space or horizontal tab (obs-fold). This specification deprecates such line folding except within the message/http media type (Section 8.3.1). A sender MUST NOT generate a message that includes line folding (i.e., that has any field-value that contains a match to the obs-fold rule) unless the message is intended for packaging within the message/http media type.
A server that receives an obs-fold in a request message that is not within a message/http container MUST either reject the message by sending a 400 (Bad Request), preferably with a representation explaining that obsolete line folding is unacceptable, or replace each received obs-fold with one or more SP octets prior to interpreting the field value or forwarding the message downstream.
A proxy or gateway that receives an obs-fold in a response message that is not within a message/http container MUST either discard the message and replace it with a 502 (Bad Gateway) response, preferably with a representation explaining that unacceptable line folding was received, or replace each received obs-fold with one or more SP octets prior to interpreting the field value or forwarding the message downstream.
A user agent that receives an obs-fold in a response message that is not within a message/http container MUST replace each received obs-fold with one or more SP octets prior to interpreting the field value.
Since duplicate headers can cause issues with various web-servers and APIs (regardless of what the spec says), I doubt there is any general purpose use case where this is best practice. That's not to say someone somewhere isn't doing it, of course.
As you're looking for use-cases, maybe Accept would be a valid one.
Accept: application/json
Accept: application/xml
It's only allowed for headers using a very specific format, see RFC 2616, Section 4.2.
Old thread, but I was looking into this same issue. Anyway, the Accept and Accept-Encoding headers are typical examples that uses multiple values, comma separated. Even if these are request specific header, the specs do not differentiate between request and response at this level. Check the one from this page.
What the spec says is that if you have commas as character in the value of the header, you cannot use multiple headers of the same name, unless you disambiguate the use of the comma.