[gopher] Correct error handling

[Wolfgang Faust]

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 7:59 AM, Damien Carol <damien.carol at gmail.com>wrote:

> My crawler use this algorithm for Menu :
>
> 1 ) just download the response as binary.
>
> 2) If the response is small size => parse as Menu with '3' node => ERROR
>
What if the binary document is small? Or if the server sends a long error
message with, say, a stack trace?

>
> 3) else it's OK
>
> I think the way floodgap manage non existant path is good. (GOGOPH Server
> do the same)
>
> 2 importants things
> => '3' node MUST be present ONLY in response menu after an error.
> => if the size of response is small, client SHOULD try to parse response
> as Menu to check '3' error nodes
>
> Tell your opinions all !
>
> I think that the client should attempt to parse it as a menu, and if the
first item is a valid '3' itemtype, consider it an error.

>
> 2012/5/11 Kim Holviala <kim at holviala.com>
>
>> On Thu, 10 May 2012, 06:01:25 EEST, Driedfruit <driedfruit at mindloop.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > It seems to me, that servers either return errors via gopher menus,
>> > either as plain-text. Is that behavior correct?
>> >
>> > gopher://floodgap.com/0/non-existant-path
>> > gopher://floodgap.com/1/non-existant-path
>> >
>> > Plain-text files couldn't be parsed as gopher menus and vice versa, so
>> > in either case the resulting output is flawed. Yet the response for the
>> > 2 queries above is the same.
>> >
>> > So what's the deal here?
>>
>> The server doesn't know what filetype the client is requesting (it's not
>> part of the request string). Gophernicus tries to guess, sometimes
>> correctly, while most other servers won't even try (which really isn't any
>> worse, just different).
>>
>> Gopher errors are just broken, plain and simple.
>>
>> - Kim
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>
>
>
> --
> Damien CAROL
> gopher://dams.zapto.org/1/
>
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>



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