[Zope3-dev] Re: Apache rewrite rules and URLs: an experiment

[Peter Mayne]

Jim Fulton wrote:
> Bjorn Tillenius wrote:
>>>> There are at least two problems with the current approach:
>>>>
>>>> * No non-ascii URL is guaranteed to work on every system
>>>>
>>>> * Many browser, at least Opera, defaults to utf-8 for URLs
>>>
>>>
>>> This (utf-8 encoding and then url-encoding) is specified in
>>> an RFC (somewhere :).
>>
>>
>>
>> Actually it doesn't specify that utf-8 has to be used, it's only a
>> recommendation. Although a good recommendation.
> 
> 
> I'm 97% sure I saw something that said utf-8.  It doesn't matter,
> I'm fairly sure that that is what modern browsers do in practice.

RFC 2718 - Guidelines for new URL Schemes

2.2.5 Character encoding

       When describing URL schemes in which (some of) the elements of the
       URL are actually representations of sequences of characters, care
       should be taken not to introduce unnecessary variety in the ways
       in which characters are encoded into octets and then into URL
       characters.  Unless there is some compelling reason for a
       particular scheme to do otherwise, translating character sequences
       into UTF-8 (RFC 2279) [3] and then subsequently using the %HH
       encoding for unsafe octets is recommended.

I couldn't find anything that specifically says HTTP uses UTF-8. The 
closest mention I found is at 
<http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/appendix/notes.html#h-B.2.1>.

PJDM
-- 
Peter Mayne
Spherion Technology Solutions
Canberra, ACT, Australia
"I'm after rebellion, I'll settle for lies" - Blue Oyster Cult