Re: LYNX-DEV Lynx 2-4-2 BUG.

[Foteos Macrides]

address@hidden (Larry W. Virden, x2487) wrote:
>From: address@hidden (Philip Webb)
>> 970501 Thomas Woolf wrote: 
>> > I have been helping stockmaster.com fix there web site.
>> > The problem is when people using 2-4-2 Try to get a Quote
>> > on Stocks using Lynx 2-4-2 it says Badly formed Address.
>> --- snip ---
>> > The same site WORKS with Lynx 2.6.
>> --- snip ---
>> 
>> users should update to the latest version 2-7-1,
>> which handles lots of newer things older versions choke on.
>
>I got the impression that Thomas was wanting to know what changes could
>be made to the HTML so that it didn't have badly formed addresses.

        From the messages thus far, it has nothing to do with HTML and
there is nothing you can do in the HTML itself to deal with the problem.
It's an HTTP problem.  The server is returning redirection via a
Location: header, and its value *MUST* be an absolute URL:

        scheme://host/path

according to both the HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1 protocols, but the server
is sending only the /path as the value for the Location: header, because
the WebMaster has not used an absolute URL in the Redirect rule of
the server's configuration file.  In Lynx v2.6 I added code to resolve
such an utterly invalid Location: value versus the original request's
base (so it will work with what the "capital venture" browsers have
caused to become commonplace on the Web by not reading or respecting
the specs intended to promote platform/vendor/hacker interoperability
on the Web), plus code in Lynx to issue a statusline message indicating
that what the server returned is invalid, as immediate feedback that
might get the problem at the server corrected via messages to the server's
WebMaster from Lynx users who have read and understood the sections on
redirection in both the HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1 protocols.  Both specs are
accessible via the Lynx online 'h'elp, so just press the appropriate
keystrokes when using Lynx, and start reading.

                                Fote

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 Foteos Macrides            Worcester Foundation for Biomedical Research
 address@hidden         222 Maple Avenue, Shrewsbury, MA 01545
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