Re: Submitting input-form data to server

marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 93 16:38:51 -0500
From: marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Marc Andreessen)
Message-id: <9309052138.AA28569@wintermute.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
To: "Tony Johnson (415) 926 2278" <TONYJ@scs.slac.stanford.edu>
Cc: ebina@ncsa.uiuc.edu, hackers@ora.com, marca@ncsa.uiuc.edu,
        putz@parc.xerox.com, robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu, wei@sting.berkeley.edu,
        www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: Re: Submitting input-form data to server
In-reply-to: <01H2LAD219KYBHA97R@SCS.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
References: <01H2LAD219KYBHA97R@SCS.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU>
X-Md4-Signature: c27adbb35f8afe8ea7b033d88182c86a
Status: RO

"Tony Johnson (415) 926 2278" writes:
> Marc writes:
> >Pei Y. Wei writes:
> >> * What syntax do we choose for marking up a property list? SGML or MIME?
> >
> >How 'bout neither?  Forms submit queries; why not stick with the
> >current query syntax?  That is, 'url?query' ... with 'query' looking
> >something like:
> >
> >        name=value&name=value&name=value
> >
> >...with the '=' and '&' characters used as reserved characters
> >(escaped as %xx in any of the name or value strings, as usual).
> 
> In the sub-group that discussed this issue at W5 we had concluded that the 
> method of sending the form response as part of the URL would not really 
> scale elegantly in the future. Consider the form:
> 
> Your name:<INPUT name="address"><p>
> 5000 word essay describing why you should win the free trip to Australia:
> <input name="essay" size = 80x500>
> 
> This would clearly result in monstrous URL's, yet it is not 
> unrepresentative of some potential uses of forms.
> 
> Since HTTP/1.0 would support new methods in addition to GET, a
> reasonable possibility seemed the addition of a new method (say
> SUBMITFORM) for submitting completed forms. Maybe the reply method
> should be something that can be specified ACTION modifier of the
> <FORM> tag, with the possibilities being
> 
> mailto:<e-mail address>     Form sent as e-mail to specified recipient
> http:<address>              Indicates to return form data as a query string
> submitform:<address>        Indicates to submit the form using the SUBMITFORM
>                             method.
> 
> Comments?

That sounds good -- fits in with current scheme of things and allows
flexibility into the future.  I'm game...

Marc