server setting the content-type
Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com>
From: Bob Stayton <bobs@sco.com>
X-Mailer: SCO System V Mail (version 3.2)
To: robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu, www-talk@nxoc01.cern.ch
Subject: server setting the content-type
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 93 10:24:16 PST
Message-id: <9312301024.aa20688@scobob.sco.com>
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Is there any way to have the NCSA server set the content
type of a file as text/html if it starts with the <HTML>
tag rather than by its filename extension?
Our site has a mixture of character and graphical terminals, so we
are trying to use both mosaic and lynx. I've noticed an
inconsistency between the two in reading HTML files from an
NCSA 1.0 server.
- In mosaic, an HTML file named "foo" will display as
formatted text if it contains a <TITLE> tag.
- In lynx, such a file will be interpreted as text and
display the HTML tags. In order for it to be shown as
formatted text, I had to change my server's srm.conf file to:
DefaultType text/html
so that the delivered document has the proper Content-type
header for HTML. But that means text files will be
interpreted as HTML also and not display properly.
We have good reasons not to add ".html" to each
HTML document, but we also don't want to add .txt
to every text document.
I talked with Lou Montulli about the inconsistency
and he suggested that it should be the server that
types a file, not the client. I seem to agree with
him, hence my question. It would seem pretty
easy for the server to look at the top of the file for the
<HTML> signature and deliver it with that content-type.
bobs
Bob Stayton 425 Encinal Street
Technical Publications Santa Cruz, CA 95060
The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. (408) 425-7222
bobs@sco.com