Re: [gopher] Gopher standard question
> Somebody recently pointed out that they are unable to browse my
> Gopherhole using the critically acclaimed web browser elinks. In the
> end, we figure out together it was due to how my gopher server was
> sending selectors over to the client. So, my question, is that is the
> proper format of a gophermap type "1" that is sent from the server to
> the client?
>
> To my understanding, the selector is what is suppose to be sent as is
> to the host and port on the same line. This way, services like finger
> and CSO work correctly with the Gopher server.
>
> My server correctly responds the following selector just fine:
> echo "sandbox" | nc gopher.veroneau.net 70
>
> "sandbox" is what the gopher menu has as it's selector for
> "Sandbox". From my understanding of the RFC specs is that there really
> is no concept of URIs nor "/", and in fact, the server is free to say
> use ":" in place of "/" if it so chooses. As long as the actual
> selectors in the gopher menu are correct.
>
> The problem with elinks, is that it automatically prepends a "/" to
> the selector if it's missing. To me, this doesn't seem like proper RFC
> standard functionality. Correct me if I'm wrong.
>
> So, depending on the response, to that the actual standard is for
> this, I will either submit a patch to mgod server, or submit a
> patch/bug report to elinks.
RFC 1436 considers selectors to be opaque strings. They don't have to be
a POSIX path (in fact, for classic Mac-based servers and VMS-based servers
back in the day, they invariably weren't). There is no requirement that the
selector start with a / or in fact any other character as long as the menu
contains the full selector the client is supposed to use.
It just so happens that the vast majority of the extant servers *do* use
POSIX paths and POSIX-type filesystems, but that's just history, not
a requirement.
tl;dr: you're right, mgod is correctly implemented, elinks has the bug.
--
------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser@floodgap.com
-- The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine ------------------
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