[whatwg] hash Attribute

[Ian Hickson]

On Tue, 7 Nov 2006, XcomCoolDude wrote:
>
> How about a hash attribute for all elements that link to external files 
> (a, img, etc.)?

What would it do? Could you give the implementation requirements?

If the idea is that UAs that implement this would stop you from using the 
file if the checksum didn't match, then this would just cause users to use 
browsers _without_ this feature to download files, since those browsers 
wouldn't complain about data corruption. "It works when I use IE to 
download the file but when I use Camari, it says 'checksum error'."


On Tue, 7 Nov 2006, Charles Iliya Krempeaux wrote:
> 
> http://microformats.org/wiki/hash-examples
> 
> Aren't URNs already being very commonly used for hashes.
> 
> Also, something else to think about is that, under certain conditions, 
> this info could potentially be passed along via HTTP headers.
> 
> Also related are MAGNET-URIs...
> 
>    http://magnet-uri.sourceforge.net/

On Wed, 8 Nov 2006, Tom Pike wrote:
> 
> Additionally, this case is already covered by the HTTP spec, namely the 
> Content-MD5 header:
> 
> http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.15

Given the various mechanisms that already exist to do this, it seems like 
adding yet another one would be a bad idea.

-- 
Ian Hickson               U+1047E                )\._.,--....,'``.    fL
http://ln.hixie.ch/       U+263A                /,   _.. \   _\  ;`._ ,.
Things that are impossible just take longer.   `._.-(,_..'--(,_..'`-.;.'