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Date: Thu, 21 May 2020 22:53:53 +0100
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Subject: HTTP/1.1 by default in PHP 8.0
From: rowan.collins@gmail.com (Rowan Tommins)

Hi all,

A few years ago, I posted a message suggesting that PHP improve support 
for HTTP/1.1 in its stream wrapper functions: 
https://externals.io/message/96192

A quick summary of the current situation:

* HTTP/1.1 was officially standardised in January 1997, and most web 
browsers had already implemented it by then
* PHP has a very simple HTTP client implementation, used by the "http:" 
and "https:" stream wrappers, and also by extensions which make HTTP 
requests, such as ext/soap
* The client implementation defaults to advertising HTTP/1.0 requests, 
unless over-ridden by a stream context option
* Since a lot of servers only actually talk HTTP/1.1, the client mostly 
acts as an HTTP/1.1 client even when advertising HTTP/1.0


In my previous message, I identified four requirements in HTTP/1.1 but 
not HTTP/1.0 that are relevant to a client:

a) Send a "Host" header with every request. (RFC 7230 Section 5.4)
b) Support persistent connections, or send "Connection: Close" with each 
request. (RFC 7230 Section 6.1)
c) Ignore 1xx status lines (notably, "100 Continue") "even if the client 
does not expect one" (RFC 7231 Section 6.2)
d) Support "chunked" transfer encoding (RFC 7230 Section 4.1)


The PHP client now supports all four regardless of protocol version 
configured, i.e. it always sends "Host:" and "Connection: Close" 
headers; and always handles "100 Continue" and "Transfer-Encoding: 
Chunked" if returned by the server.

I would like to propose that the client advertises HTTP/1.1 in its 
requests by default in PHP 8.0.  Users can opt out of this behaviour in 
a fully backwards- and forwards-compatible way if necessary using a 
stream context option, e.g.: 
https://gist.github.com/IMSoP/a685fed6589435530102d57138755511


What are people's opinions? Does this need an RFC, or should I just 
submit a PR if nobody objects?


Regards,

-- 
Rowan Tommins (né Collins)
[IMSoP]