Network Working Group J. Reschke
Internet-Draft greenbytes
Intended status: Standards Track April 30, 2010
Expires: November 1, 2010
Character Set and Language Encoding for Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) Header Field Parameters
draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-12
Abstract
By default, message header field parameters in Hypertext Transfer
Protocol (HTTP) messages can not carry characters outside the ISO-
8859-1 character set. RFC 2231 defines an encoding mechanism for use
in Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) headers. This
document specifies an encoding suitable for use in HTTP header fields
which is compatible to a profile of the encoding defined in RFC 2231.
Editorial Note (To be removed by RFC Editor before publication)
There are multiple HTTP header fields that already use RFC 2231
encoding in practice (Content-Disposition) or might use it in the
future (Link). The purpose of this document is to provide a single
place where the generic aspects of RFC 2231 encoding in HTTP header
fields are defined.
Distribution of this document is unlimited. Although this is not a
work item of the HTTPbis Working Group, comments should be sent to
the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) mailing list at
ietf-http-wg@w3.org [1], which may be joined by sending a message
with subject "subscribe" to ietf-http-wg-request@w3.org [2].
Discussions of the HTTPbis Working Group are archived at
.
XML versions, latest edits and the issues list for this document are
available from
. A
collection of test cases is available at
.
Note: as of February 2010, there were at least three independent
implementations of the encoding defined in Section 3.2: Konqueror
(starting with 4.4.1), Mozilla Firefox, and Opera.
Status of This Memo
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This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
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This Internet-Draft will expire on November 1, 2010.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2010 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2. Notational Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
3. Comparison to RFC 2231 and Definition of the Encoding . . . . 4
3.1. Parameter Continuations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2. Parameter Value Character Set and Language Information . . 5
3.2.1. Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2.2. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.3. Language specification in Encoded Words . . . . . . . . . 8
4. Guidelines for Usage in HTTP Header Field Definitions . . . . 8
4.1. When to Use the Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.2. Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
5. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
6. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
7. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
8.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Appendix A. Document History and Future Plans (to be removed
by RFC Editor before publication) . . . . . . . . . . 12
Appendix B. Change Log (to be removed by RFC Editor before
publication) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
B.1. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-00 . . . . . . . . . . 12
B.2. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-01 . . . . . . . . . . 12
B.3. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-02 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.4. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-03 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.5. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-04 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.6. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-05 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.7. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-06 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.8. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-07 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.9. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-08 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.10. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-09 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.11. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-10 . . . . . . . . . . 13
B.12. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-11 . . . . . . . . . . 14
Appendix C. Resolved issues (to be removed by RFC Editor
before publication) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
C.1. edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
C.2. nonorm2231 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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1. Introduction
By default, message header field parameters in HTTP ([RFC2616])
messages can not carry characters outside the ISO-8859-1 character
set ([ISO-8859-1]). RFC 2231 ([RFC2231]) defines an encoding
mechanism for use in MIME headers. This document specifies an
encoding suitable for use in HTTP header fields which is compatible
to a profile of the encoding defined in RFC 2231.
Note: in the remainder of this document, RFC 2231 is only
referenced for the purpose of explaining the choice of features
that were adopted; they are therefore purely informative.
Note: this encoding does not apply to message payloads transmitted
over HTTP, such as when using the media type "multipart/form-data"
([RFC2388]).
2. Notational Conventions
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].
This specification uses the ABNF (Augmented Backus-Naur Form)
notation defined in [RFC5234]. The following core rules are included
by reference, as defined in [RFC5234], Appendix B.1: ALPHA (letters),
DIGIT (decimal 0-9), HEXDIG (hexadecimal 0-9/A-F/a-f) and LWSP
(linear white space).
Note that this specification uses the term "character set" for
consistency with other IETF specifications such as RFC 2277 (see
[RFC2277], Section 3). A more accurate term would be "character
encoding" (a mapping of code points to octet sequences).
3. Comparison to RFC 2231 and Definition of the Encoding
RFC 2231 defines several extensions to MIME. The sections below
discuss if and how they apply to HTTP header fields.
In short:
o Parameter Continuations aren't needed (Section 3.1),
o Character Set and Language Information are useful, therefore a
simple subset is specified (Section 3.2), and
o Language Specifications in Encoded Words aren't needed
(Section 3.3).
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3.1. Parameter Continuations
Section 3 of [RFC2231] defines a mechanism that deals with the length
limitations that apply to MIME headers. These limitations do not
apply to HTTP ([RFC2616], Section 19.4.7).
Thus, parameter continuations are not part of the encoding defined by
this specification.
3.2. Parameter Value Character Set and Language Information
Section 4 of [RFC2231] specifies how to embed language information
into parameter values, and also how to encode non-ASCII characters,
dealing with restrictions both in MIME and HTTP header parameters.
However, RFC 2231 does not specify a mandatory-to-implement character
set, making it hard for senders to decide which character set to use.
Thus, recipients implementing this specification MUST support the
character sets "ISO-8859-1" [ISO-8859-1] and "UTF-8" [RFC3629].
Furthermore, RFC 2231 allows leaving out the character set
information. The encoding defined by this specification does not
allow that.
3.2.1. Definition
The syntax for parameters is defined in Section 3.6 of [RFC2616]
(with RFC 2616 implied LWS translated to RFC 5234 LWSP):
parameter = attribute LWSP "=" LWSP value
attribute = token
value = token / quoted-string
quoted-string =
token =
In order to include character set and language information, this
specification modifies the RFC 2616 grammar to:
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parameter = reg-parameter / ext-parameter
reg-parameter = parmname LWSP "=" LWSP value
ext-parameter = parmname "*" LWSP "=" LWSP ext-value
parmname = 1*attr-char
ext-value = charset "'" [ language ] "'" value-chars
; like RFC 2231's
; (see [RFC2231], Section 7)
charset = "UTF-8" / "ISO-8859-1" / mime-charset
mime-charset = 1*mime-charsetc
mime-charsetc = ALPHA / DIGIT
/ "!" / "#" / "$" / "%" / "&"
/ "+" / "-" / "^" / "_" / "`"
/ "{" / "}" / "~"
; as in Section 2.3 of [RFC2978]
; except that the single quote is not included
; SHOULD be registered in the IANA charset registry
language =
value-chars = *( pct-encoded / attr-char )
pct-encoded = "%" HEXDIG HEXDIG
; see [RFC3986], Section 2.1
attr-char = ALPHA / DIGIT
/ "!" / "#" / "$" / "&" / "+" / "-" / "."
/ "^" / "_" / "`" / "|" / "~"
; token except ( "*" / "'" / "%" )
Thus, a parameter is either regular parameter (reg-parameter), as
previously defined in Section 3.6 of [RFC2616], or an extended
parameter (ext-parameter).
Extended parameters are those where the left hand side of the
assignment ends with an asterisk character.
The value part of an extended parameter (ext-value) is a token that
consists of three parts: the REQUIRED character set name (charset),
the OPTIONAL language information (language), and a character
sequence representing the actual value (value-chars), separated by
single quote characters. Note that both character set names and
language tags are restricted to the US-ASCII character set, and are
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matched case-insensitively (see [RFC2978], Section 2.3 and [RFC5646],
Section 2.1.1).
Inside the value part, characters not contained in attr-char are
encoded into an octet sequence using the specified character set.
That octet sequence then is percent-encoded as specified in Section
2.1 of [RFC3986].
Producers MUST use either the "UTF-8" ([RFC3629]) or the "ISO-8859-1"
([ISO-8859-1]) character set. Extension character sets (mime-
charset) are reserved for future use.
Note: recipients should be prepared to handle encoding errors,
such as malformed or incomplete percent escape sequences, or non-
decodable octet sequences, in a robust manner. This specification
does not mandate any specific behavior, for instance the following
strategies are all acceptable:
* ignoring the parameter,
* stripping a non-decodable octet sequence,
* substituting a non-decodable octet sequence by a replacement
character, such as the Unicode character U+FFFD (Replacement
Character).
Note: the RFC 2616 token production ([RFC2616], Section 2.2)
differs from the production used in RFC 2231 (imported from
Section 5.1 of [RFC2045]) in that curly braces ("{" and "}") are
excluded. Thus, these two characters are excluded from the attr-
char production as well.
Note: the ABNF defined here differs from the one in
Section 2.3 of [RFC2978] in that it does not allow the single
quote character (see also RFC Editor Errata ID 1912 [3]). In
practice, no character set names using that character have been
registered at the time of this writing.
3.2.2. Examples
Non-extended notation, using "token":
foo: bar; title=Economy
Non-extended notation, using "quoted-string":
foo: bar; title="US-$ rates"
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Extended notation, using the unicode character U+00A3 (POUND SIGN):
foo: bar; title*=iso-8859-1'en'%A3%20rates
Note: the Unicode pound sign character U+00A3 was encoded using ISO-
8859-1 into the single octet A3, then percent-encoded. Also note
that the space character was encoded as %20, as it is not contained
in attr-char.
Extended notation, using the unicode characters U+00A3 (POUND SIGN)
and U+20AC (EURO SIGN):
foo: bar; title*=UTF-8''%c2%a3%20and%20%e2%82%ac%20rates
Note: the unicode pound sign character U+00A3 was encoded using UTF-8
into the octet sequence C2 A3, then percent-encoded. Likewise, the
unicode euro sign character U+20AC was encoded into the octet
sequence E2 82 AC, then percent-encoded. Also note that HEXDIG
allows both lower-case and upper-case character, so recipients must
understand both, and that the language information is optional, while
the character set is not.
3.3. Language specification in Encoded Words
Section 5 of [RFC2231] extends the encoding defined in [RFC2047] to
also support language specification in encoded words. Although the
HTTP/1.1 specification does refer to RFC 2047 ([RFC2616], Section
2.2), it's not clear to which header field exactly it applies, and
whether it is implemented in practice (see
for details).
Thus, this specification does not include this feature.
4. Guidelines for Usage in HTTP Header Field Definitions
Specifications of HTTP header fields that use the extensions defined
in Section 3.2 ought to clearly state that. A simple way to achieve
this is to normatively reference this specification, and to include
the ext-value production into the ABNF for that header field.
For instance:
foo-header = "foo" LWSP ":" LWSP token ";" LWSP title-param
title-param = "title" LWSP "=" LWSP value
/ "title*" LWSP "=" LWSP ext-value
ext-value =
[[rfcno: Note to RFC Editor: in the figure above, please replace
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"xxxx" by the RFC number assigned to this specification.]]
Note: The Parameter Value Continuation feature defined in Section
3 of [RFC2231] makes it impossible to have multiple instances of
extended parameters with identical parmname components, as the
processing of continuations would become ambiguous. Thus,
specifications using this extension are advised to disallow this
case for compatibility with RFC 2231.
4.1. When to Use the Extension
Section 4.2 of [RFC2277] requires that protocol elements containing
human-readable text are able to carry language information. Thus,
the ext-value production ought to be always used when the parameter
value is of textual nature and its language is known.
Furthermore, the extension ought to also be used whenever the
parameter value needs to carry characters not present in the US-ASCII
([USASCII]) character set (note that it would be unacceptable to
define a new parameter that would be restricted to a subset of the
Unicode character set).
4.2. Error Handling
Header field specifications need to define whether multiple instances
of parameters with identical parmname components are allowed, and how
they should processed. This specification suggests that a parameter
using the extended syntax takes precedence. This could be used by
producers to use both formats without breaking recipients that do not
understand the extended syntax yet.
Example:
foo: bar; title="EURO exchange rates";
title*=utf-8''%e2%82%ac%20exchange%20rates
In this case, the sender provides an ASCII version of the title for
legacy recipients, but also includes an internationalized version for
recipients understanding this specification -- the latter obviously
ought to prefer the new syntax over the old one.
Note: at the time of this writing, many implementations failed to
ignore the form they do not understand, or prioritize the ASCII
form although the extended syntax was present.
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5. Security Considerations
The format described in this document makes it possible to transport
non-ASCII characters, and thus enables character "spoofing"
scenarios, in which a displayed value appears to be something other
than it is.
Furthermore, there are known attack scenarios relating to decoding
UTF-8.
See Section 10 of [RFC3629] for more information on both topics.
In addition, the extension specified in this document makes it
possible to transport multiple language variants for a single
parameter, and such use might allow spoofing attacks, where different
language versions of the same parameter are not equivalent. Whether
this attack is useful as an attack depends on the parameter
specified.
6. IANA Considerations
There are no IANA Considerations related to this specification.
7. Acknowledgements
Thanks to Martin Duerst and Frank Ellermann for help figuring out
ABNF details, to Graham Klyne and Alexey Melnikov for general review,
Chris Newman for pointing out an RFC 2231 incompatibility, and to
Benjamin Carlyle and Roar Lauritzsen for implementer's feedback.
8. References
8.1. Normative References
[ISO-8859-1] International Organization for Standardization,
"Information technology -- 8-bit single-byte coded
graphic character sets -- Part 1: Latin alphabet No.
1", ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998, 1998.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2616] Fielding, R., Gettys, J., Mogul, J., Frystyk, H.,
Masinter, L., Leach, P., and T. Berners-Lee, "Hypertext
Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1", RFC 2616, June 1999.
[RFC2978] Freed, N. and J. Postel, "IANA Charset Registration
Procedures", BCP 19, RFC 2978, October 2000.
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[RFC3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", RFC 3629, STD 63, November 2003.
[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter,
"Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax",
RFC 3986, STD 66, January 2005.
[RFC5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for
Syntax Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234,
January 2008.
[RFC5646] Phillips, A., Ed. and M. Davis, Ed., "Tags for
Identifying Languages", BCP 47, RFC 5646,
September 2009.
[USASCII] American National Standards Institute, "Coded Character
Set -- 7-bit American Standard Code for Information
Interchange", ANSI X3.4, 1986.
8.2. Informative References
[RFC2045] Freed, N. and N. Borenstein, "Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions (MIME) Part One: Format of Internet
Message Bodies", RFC 2045, November 1996.
[RFC2047] Moore, K., "MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) Part Three: Message Header Extensions for
Non-ASCII Text", RFC 2047, November 1996.
[RFC2231] Freed, N. and K. Moore, "MIME Parameter Value and
Encoded Word Extensions: Character Sets, Languages, and
Continuations", RFC 2231, November 1997.
[RFC2277] Alvestrand, H., "IETF Policy on Character Sets and
Languages", BCP 18, RFC 2277, January 1998.
[RFC2388] Masinter, L., "Returning Values from Forms: multipart/
form-data", RFC 2388, August 1998.
URIs
[1]
[2]
[3]
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Appendix A. Document History and Future Plans (to be removed by RFC
Editor before publication)
Problems with the internationalization of the HTTP Content-
Disposition header field have been known for many years (see test
cases at ).
During IETF 72
(), the
HTTPbis Working Group shortly discussed how to deal with the
underspecification of (1) Content-Disposition, and its (2)
internationalization aspects. Back then, there was rough consensus
in the room to move the definition into a separate draft.
This specification addresses problem (2), by defining a simple subset
of the encoding format defined in RFC 2231. A separate
specification, draft-reschke-rfc2183-in-http, is planned to address
problem (1). Note that this approach was chosen because Content-
Disposition is just an example for an HTTP header field using this
kind of encoding. Another example is the currently proposed Link
header field (draft-nottingham-http-link-header).
This document is planned to be published on the IETF Standards Track,
so that other standards-track level documents can depend on it, such
as the new specification of Content-Disposition, or potentially
future revisions of the HTTP Link Header specification.
Also note that this document specifies a proper subset of the
extensions defined in RFC 2231, but does not normatively refer to it.
Thus, RFC 2231 can be revised separately, should the email community
decide to.
Appendix B. Change Log (to be removed by RFC Editor before publication)
B.1. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-00
Use RFC5234-style ABNF, closer to the one used in RFC 2231.
Make RFC 2231 dependency informative, so this specification can
evolve independently.
Explain the ABNF in prose.
B.2. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-01
Remove unneeded RFC5137 notation (code point vs character).
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B.3. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-02
And and resolve issues "charset", "repeats" and "rfc4646".
B.4. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-03
And and resolve issue "charsetmatch".
B.5. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-04
Add and resolve issues "badseq" and "tokenquotcharset".
B.6. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-05
Say "header field" instead of "header" in the context of HTTP.
B.7. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-06
Add an appendix discussing document history and future plans, to be
removed before publication.
B.8. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-07
Add and resolve issues "impl" and "rel-2388".
B.9. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-08
Editorial improvements. Add and resolve issues "attrcharvstoken" and
"tokengrammar".
B.10. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-09
Add issues "i18n-spoofing", "iso8859", "parameter-abnf", and "when-
ext-value". Add and resolve issues "rfc2978-normative", "rfc3986-
normative" and "usascii-normative".
B.11. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-10
Resolve issues "i18n-spoofing", "iso8859", "parameter-abnf", and
"when-ext-value".
Add and resolve issue "charset-registered", "handling-multiple",
"multiple-inst-spoofing", "repeated-param" and "value-abnf".
Update the KDE implementation note.
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B.12. Since draft-reschke-rfc2231-in-http-11
In the prose in Section 3.2, "ext-charset" -> "mime-charset". In
Section 4, avoid the use of "should" and "recommended". In
Section 4.1 clarify that the RFC 2277 requirement is about human-
readable text. Clarify parts that made it look as if this spec has a
normative dependency on RFC 2231 (new issue "nonorm2231").
Appendix C. Resolved issues (to be removed by RFC Editor before
publication)
Issues that were either rejected or resolved in this version of this
document.
C.1. edit
Type: edit
julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2009-04-17): Umbrella issue for
editorial fixes/enhancements.
C.2. nonorm2231
Type: edit
julian.reschke@greenbytes.de (2010-04-23): It's not totally clear
that the mentions of RFC 2231 really are all informative.
Resolution (2010-04-28): Clarify title of the spec, plus text talking
about RFC 2231. Avoid saying "profile" in general.
Author's Address
Julian F. Reschke
greenbytes GmbH
Hafenweg 16
Muenster, NW 48155
Germany
EMail: julian.reschke@greenbytes.de
URI: http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/
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