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CGI programs and the gemini protocol

Hugo Wetterberg hugo at wetterberg.nu

Mon Mar 22 07:51:41 GMT 2021

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It's underspecified in the way that it breaks from what's the commonexpectations of how query components work without being explicitly clearon the fact that it does so. I'm onboard with that it might be formallycorrect, but when I read the spec that was one that confused me./Hugo

On Sat, 2021-03-20 at 01:46 +0100, Philip Linde wrote:

I don't see how it's how it's underspecified. In particular, I don't
see why anyone should assume &-separated values. The spec refers to
IETF RFC 3986, which doesn't at all concern how to encode multiple
values. It simple describes the query as a segment of a URI starting
with a "?" and ending with the end of the URI or a fragment marker
"#".
The spec makes it clear that the input should be included as a query
component. There can only be one RFC 3986 query component. Possibly
calling it *the* query component instead would be a useful
clarification for people who are not so familiar with RFC 3986.
If a server wants to produce a e.g. a form with multiple input
queries, accumulating a form state throughout, they can encode the
state of the completed parts of the form in the path segment and serve
a redirect after each input.
If this is a new feature that people want, I think it should be
discussed as such. To say that it's underspecified is however just
wishful thinking.
--
Philip