[Web-SIG] String Types in WSGI [Graham's WSGI for py3]

[Robert Brewer]

René Dudfield wrote:
> No, slash encoding and normalising are not the only issues.
> As mentioned before sometimes you need the exact bytes.
>
> 1. buggy clients.  If a client sends something that doesn't work
> correctly, you can still sometimes make sense of it in the raw
version
> of the url.
> 2. client APIs that require the server to know the exact url.
> 3. buggy servers that don't do their job properly.
> 4. extensibility.  A url scheme changes a tiny bit, and you want to
> support the change.  Having the raw url allows you do to support it
> on old servers.
>
> In all APIs it's handy to go to lower levels when the higher levels
> don't work right.  Especially when wsgi only handles one side of
> things, and urls are can be generated by anything.

and Graham Dumpleton replied:
> This is where it all comes down to me not have the real world
> experience in writing web applications to know best.
> 
> What I would like to hear is PJE (who tends towards #3) and Robert
> Brewer (who tends towards #4). Can you guys give counter explanations
> as to why there arguments for bytes isn't valid. Ian, I don't think
> you have yet expressed your leaning, but would like to here your point
> as well.

No; in fact, I agree that REQUEST_URI should be mandated as bytes. IIRC, I'm the one who proposed it ;)


Robert Brewer
fumanchu at aminus.org