That would be true if it was mandatory to be present -however it is an optional field. So it is only sometimes helpful.
Jim From: Richard Barnes [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2013 3:45 PM To: Jim Schaad Cc: [email protected] Subject: Re: [jose] Should we delete the "typ" header field As I understand it, "typ" lets you look at an object and tell if it's a JWE or JWS. That seems handy enough to keep around. Depending on how we do MIME types, it might even be necessary, namely if we have a single application/jose type. I forget if that's the case in the current docs. On Wednesday, May 29, 2013, Jim Schaad wrote: In reading the documents, I am trying to understand the justification for having the "typ" header parameter in the JOSE documents. The purpose of the field is to hold the type of the object. In the past, I believe that values which should now be placed in the cty field (such as "JWT") were placed in this field as well. However the parameter is optional and an implementation cannot rely on its being present. This means that for all practical purposes all of the code to determine the value of the type field from the values of the alg and enc fields. If the field was mandatory then this code would disappear at a fairly small space cost and I can understand why the parameter would be present. Can anybody justify why this field should be present in the document - or should it just disappear? Jim
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