[whatwg] <a href="" ping="">

[Jasper Bryant-Greene]

On Tue, 2005-10-25 at 14:43 -0700, Charles Iliya Krempeaux wrote:
> On 10/22/05, Jasper Bryant-Greene <jasper at album.co.nz> wrote:
> > On Sat, 2005-10-22 at 20:25 +1000, Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> > > It could be defined in reverse, where the ping attribute (probably given
> > > a more suitable name, but I'll use ping for now) could be advisory
> > > information about the final destination and the href attribute defines
> > > the ping destination, such that following the href attribute would
> > > perform a redirect, but WA1 UAs could use the URI in the ping attribute
> > > to notify the user of the final destination (such as displaying it in
> > > the status bar).
> >
> > Or the UA could just do a HEAD request for the URI in the /href/
> > attribute and display the contents of the Location: header if the
> > response status is 3xx. We don't need a new attribute for this.
> 
> The HTTP "HEAD" method really doesn't give you the semantics of what
> you are trying to do.
> 
> "POST" would be better than "HEAD" IMO, since it conveys semantics
> more closely to what we mean.  However, I don't really like "POST"
> since it allows for all kinds of "social hacking".  IMO, using a new
> HTTP method would probably be better.  Maybe "PING".
> 

You're mis-understanding what Lachlan was suggesting. We are talking
about finding out the final destination (after the redirect), not
pinging a URI to say that a link has been clicked.

I was suggesting that the UA do a HEAD request for the URI in the /href/
attribute to find out where the URI was going to redirect to.

Doing a POST for this would be completely wrong, as it would result in
two hits to the URI.

-- 
Jasper Bryant-Greene
General Manager
Album Limited

e: jasper at album.co.nz
w: http://www.album.co.nz/
p: 0800 4 ALBUM (0800 425 286) or +64 21 232 3303
a: PO Box 579, Christchurch 8015, New Zealand