"William A. Rowe, Jr." wrote: > > > That is, if the URI is index.bak, we can only negociate > > amongst variants matching index.bak* -- NOT index.*.bak*. > > What's your rational? I agree that index[.*].bak[.*] is broader > than index.bak[.*] --- but I'm wondering why you feel this way? > > Say that we want to point the user to the english index page. > Why shouldn't a request for index.en discover index.html.en or > index.cgi.en?
Negociation is done using the header field values, NOT the URI. "index.en" is NOT a request for an English variant of "index", it is a request for [possibly some variant of] an object named "index.en" -- period. That a portion of the specified URI happens to match a value that has meaning in negociation is completely coincidental -- and irrelevant. We cannot co-opt nor interpret nor decompose the value of the URI in negociation; all we can use are the parameters in the header and the resource (read: file) names. If it were meant to be used as a negociation axis, it would be in the header fields and absent from the URI. That it is explicit in the URI removes it from participation in any negociation axes. If the URI is "index.en", an explicitly English variant must match "index.en*.en*". Ordering is an issue for sure, but playing games, by decomposing the URI and trying to guess what it means, only complicates matters and is not on. All IM[NS?]HO.. although Roy may have something to say on this. -- #ken P-)} Ken Coar, Sanagendamgagwedweinini http://Golux.Com/coar/ Author, developer, opinionist http://Apache-Server.Com/ "All right everyone! Step away from the glowing hamburger!"
