Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content
draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-22

HTTPbis Working Group                                   R. Fielding, Ed.
Internet-Draft                                                     Adobe
Obsoletes: 2616 (if approved)                            J. Reschke, Ed.
Updates: 2817 (if approved)                                   greenbytes
Intended status: Standards Track                       February 23, 2013
Expires: August 27, 2013

     Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1): Semantics and Content
                   draft-ietf-httpbis-p2-semantics-22

Abstract

   The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application-level
   protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypertext information
   systems.  This document defines the semantics of HTTP/1.1 messages,
   as expressed by request methods, request header fields, response
   status codes, and response header fields, along with the payload of
   messages (metadata and body content) and mechanisms for content
   negotiation.

Editorial Note (To be removed by RFC Editor)

   Discussion of this draft takes place on the HTTPBIS working group
   mailing list (ietf-http-wg@w3.org), which is archived at
   <http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/ietf-http-wg/>.

   The current issues list is at
   <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/report/3> and related
   documents (including fancy diffs) can be found at
   <http://tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/>.

   The changes in this draft are summarized in Appendix E.2.

Status of This Memo

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Fielding & Reschke       Expires August 27, 2013                [Page 1]
Internet-Draft       HTTP/1.1 Semantics and Content        February 2013

   This Internet-Draft will expire on August 27, 2013.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     1.1.  Conformance and Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
     1.2.  Syntax Notation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6
   2.  Resources  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
   3.  Representations  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  7
     3.1.  Representation Metadata  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.1.1.  Processing the Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  8
       3.1.2.  Encoding for Compression or Integrity  . . . . . . . . 11
       3.1.3.  Audience Language  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
       3.1.4.  Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
     3.2.  Representation Data  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     3.3.  Payload Semantics  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
     3.4.  Content Negotiation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       3.4.1.  Proactive Negotiation  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
       3.4.2.  Reactive Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19