HTTP/2 and PRI

[woody]

Greetings!

I noticed this HTTP Method called "PRI" that could be passed similar to "GET" or "POST".

https://http2.github.io/http2-spec/#ConnectionHeader

Is this important?

Do you plan to support this in MS 3.0 ?

I notice that MS 2.x crashes if it receives this method in the HTTP call: PRI *

Thoughts about PRI ?

Thanks!

//W

[Brian|Dyalog]

Hi Woody,

There are several points to address from your post - I'll try to tackle most of them.

HTTP/2 - we don't currently support it and barring compelling demand for it from the MiServer user community, it's not on the priority list for MiServer development for the foreseeable future. Even then, it would be in MiServer 3.1 or later and not MiServer 2.x.

Is the PRI HTTP method important? From my reading, if you're using HTTP/2, it would seem that it is important as it's part of the connection negotiation process. But since HTTP/2 is a ways off, it's not significant to MiServer yet.

I'm surprised that MiServer 2.x crashes when it gets a PRI HTTP request. Eyeballing the code, it looks like it should respond with a 501 (Service not implemented) status. Can you send me a repro for the crash?

It turns out that there are many (about 40) HTTP methods http://www.iana.org/assignments/http-methods/http-methods.xhtml. When we enabled MiServer 3 to support RESTful web services, we added a configuration parameter to allow you to specify the list of HTTP methods that your website/service would support. In theory, you could add PRI to this list, but you would also have to write code for what to do in response to such a request.

All in all, when we do decide to support HTTP/2, it will likely be built into Conga. The forthcoming release of Conga 3.0 will have an "HTTP" mode which supports HTTP/1.1, so that would be the most sensible place to add HTTP/2 support.

I hope this helps!
/Brian