Re: CGI and typing files by suffix

robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool)
Message-id: <9312301955.AA27539@void.ncsa.uiuc.edu>
From: robm@ncsa.uiuc.edu (Rob McCool)
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 1993 13:55:22 -0600
In-Reply-To: Tony Sanders <sanders@BSDI.COM>
       "Re: CGI and typing files by suffix" (Dec 30,  2:17am)
X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92)
To: Tony Sanders <sanders@BSDI.COM>, www-talk@www0.cern.ch
Subject: Re: CGI and typing files by suffix
Content-Length: 1934

/*
 * Re: CGI and typing files by suffix  by Tony Sanders (sanders@BSDI.COM)
 *    written on Dec 30,  2:17am.
 *
 * Of course, the servers do this because it's convenient.
 * Someday I will fix Plexus so this is done "right" and the typing isn't
 * wholy suffix dependent.  I will probably end up keeping cache files
 * in each directory that get updated automatically as needed.  There is
 * also the non-trivial issue of how to admin such a beast.

Exactly....

 * Basically, typing by suffix is UNACCEPTABLE for the client end (though as
 * NCSA Mosaic proved it can work ok for some stuff, that isn't the issue)
 * but it's perfectly fine for the server to use this if it wants.  The key
 * is that there is nothing requiring the server to do so, it's mearly done
 * as a matter of convenience on some OS's.

Certainly. I'd love to see MacHTTP use the typing information available from
the Mac filesystem to determine MIME type.

 * I fail to see how:
 *     http://server/path/cmd;args
 * Is really any clearer or better than:
 *     http://server/path/cmd/args
 * 
 * The `;' scheme simply has too many drawbacks (namely you can't front-end
 * existing directory hierarchies with scripts).

I would say that the drawback of doing multiple stats may outweigh this
particular benefit, however, I think the status quo is Not That Bad and in
fact is very powerful for a LOT of things.

 * Using the execute bit, where available, is probably the best plan.
 */

I don't know about that... I have a lot of stray x bits on my server... the
tech support when such a plan is adopted would be a nightmare. I don't think
magic names in config files is such a horrible rotten idea, (since the URL
is the domain of the server). I find the idea of making a new content-type
to determine script execution intriguing, since it would mean that if we
ever move away from filename extensions that scripts would be ``just another
object''.

--Rob