From: gopher-bounce@complete.org
       Date: Tue Aug  5 04:14:28 2008
       Subject: [gopher] Re: Item Type Suggestions
       
       > We already have an URL scheme which supports mime (the gopher+ views),
       > but that does not work with old clients:
       > quoting rfc1738:
       > 
       > >    A Gopher URL takes the form:
       > >
       > >       gopher://<host>:<port>/<gopher-path>
       > >
       > >    where <gopher-path> is one of
       > >
       > >        <gophertype><selector>
       > >        <gophertype><selector>%09<search>
       > >        <gophertype><selector>%09<search>%09<gopher+_string>
       > 
       > 
       > An url for a jpeg image made available as gophertype 9 with gopher+
       > would be (e.g., if the language is set as En_Us):
       > 
       > gopher://server/9blablabla%09%09+image/jpeg%20En_Us
       > 
       > But this needs some magic to work - the client has to remove the extra
       > tab, as there's no search string, because the server does not expect the
       > search field to be sent when it is empty.
       
       Yeah, about that. I'm antsy about using %09 in URLs -- not because it
       won't work, and not because it's not RFC, but because I can see well-meaning
       browser authors and the like throwing exceptions for a 'control character
       in a URL ZOMG hack alert!!1!'. I have seen this kind of idiocy on a systemic
       level. Don't think it wouldn't happen. Srsly. :)
       
       Yes, UTF-8 requires encoding *but* it has its high-bit set, *and* it has
       the weight of "everyone's using it," whereas I suspect there are very, very
       few non-pathologic uses of characters < %20 in URLs in practice. We don't
       even use it now for gopher; the convention has been '?' as a separator (I
       don't really like that but there it is).
       
       -- 
       ------------------------------------ personal: http://www.cameronkaiser.com/ --
         Cameron Kaiser * Floodgap Systems * www.floodgap.com * ckaiser@floodgap.com
       -- Never say never again. -----------------------------------------------------