Re: application/octet-stream and empty fileinputs

I was essentially doing this:

use HTML::Form;

my $f = HTML::Form->parse(<<EOT, "http://www.example.com");
 <form method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
  <input name=f value="" type="file">
 </form>
EOT

print $f->click->as_string

I don't think it's a real big deal to not have the content-type since
nothing is being submitted, though I am curious what compelled the Mozilla
people to set it to octet-stream when nothing had been selected.


On 04 Mar 2006 01:49:56 -0800, Gisle Aas <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> "Eric Kolve" <[email protected]> writes:
>
> > I noticed that if you submit an HTML::Form that it doesn't set the
> > content-type for empty fileinputs to application/octet-stream.  I am not
> > sure if this is legal or not.
>
> The reported content type is determined by looking at the file name
> extension and if not recongnized by what perl's -T builtin thinks.  On
> my system -T regards empty files as text, so empty files are reported
> as text/plain.
>
> This program:
>
> use HTML::Form;
> my $f = HTML::Form->parse(<<EOT, "http://www.example.com");
> <form method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
>    <input name=f value="/dev/null" type="file">
> </form>
> EOT
> print $f->click->as_string;
>
> will for instance print:
>
> POST http://www.example.com
> Content-Length: 114
> Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=xYzZY
>
> --xYzZY
> Content-Disposition: form-data; name="f"; filename="/dev/null"
> Content-Type: text/plain
>
>
> --xYzZY--
>
> Your message seems to indicate that you get no Content-Type at all.
> Please provide some example code that demonstrates how you use the
> module.
>
> >                                  I compared dumps of firefox vs. LWP and
> it
> > looks like firefox does set the content-type even if you don't have
> anything
> > for the input stream.  I suppose since the content is empty you
> *SHOULDN'T*
> > have to set a content-type, but I am curious to hear opinions on whether
> > this should be changed.
>
> If you find differences that make real world applications break with
> LWP that works with Firefox then I would certainly like to fix LWP.
>
> Regards,
> Gisle
>