Re: proxy support doesn't work for `file:...' URLs

"Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@hal.com>

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Date: Mon, 2 May 1994 07:07:43 +0200
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From: "Daniel W. Connolly" <connolly@hal.com>
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Subject: Re: proxy support doesn't work for `file:...' URLs 
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In message <94May1.213811pdt.2760@golden.parc.xerox.com>, Larry Masinter writes
:
>This seems a problem with all of the implementations:
>The file:... URL is used both for local files and remote ones.
>
>I'd like to support users who want to test out their HTML documents
>via local files, but have them go thru the proxy server for non-local
>files. However, if you set up file_proxy to be your proxy server, you
>won't get local file access; if you don't, it won't try to proxy
>access even when `file:' is treated as `ftp:'.
>
>I've patched this in my local copies of Mosaic and lynx through a
>rather ugly hack, and I'm not currently using the proxy version of
>emacs (having proxy-ized that in a different way).
>
>I suppose I wouldn't need to do this if there were a supported
>URL localfile:... in all of the browsers; then we could deprecate
>`file:' by just making it equivalent to `ftp:'.

Yes... this gets a quick-and-dirty award for high utility/diff-line
ratio...

But the long-term solution is to merge the URL scheme:
and MIME access-type namespaces. In MIME, localfile is spelled
"local-file", and anonymous ftp is spelled "anon-ftp". They
also define "afs" and "mail-server". We should deprecate "mailto:"
in favor of "mail-server" for the same reasons.

There's a wealth of experience and knowledge built up in the MIME
standardization process. No reason not to use it.

Dan

Daniel W. Connolly        "We believe in the interconnectedness of all things"
Software Engineer, Hal Software Systems, OLIAS project   (512) 834-9962 x5010
<connolly@hal.com>                   http://www.hal.com/%7Econnolly/index.html