Re: POSTing (from mosaic for X)

Jay C. Weber (weber@eit.COM)
Mon, 1 Aug 1994 19:18:31 +0200

> From: liberte@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Daniel LaLiberte)
>
> My idea is that with method=POST in an anchor, all the other attributes
> of the anchor would be passed to the cgi script as standard input, just
> as if it were the action of a FORM.

Yes, that's come up here too, but it's low on my priority list because,
as you said, you can stuff the HREF attribute. (In fact, one of my
test applications POSTs a file *and* stuffs form attributes into the
HREF.)

> To support both your idea and mine, there would have to be some
> additional option to select between input from a file and input from
> the attributes.

Yes, I'd been thinking about a source=ask attribute along with method=POST,
if for no other reason than to make the procedure for getting the file
more explicit. There could also be a source=inline attribute to do what
you want.

Though I'm hesitant to support your idea of "all other attributes of the
anchor would be passed [as form attributes]" -- that would lead to
anchors that break when new anchor attributes are implemented in browsers,
anchors that can't pass form attributes named by reserved words like HREF,
and really frustrate DTD developers. Better to slap them into one or
more formatt="lastname=Weber" attributes, for example.

And btw, you'd have to add an ENCTYPE attribute.

Jay