274447 - FIrefox does not process charset=UTF-8 included in html page

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Tino Rodriguez]

It seems to me that Firefox uses whatever information is getting from the HTTP
Server (Apache in my case) about the character coding. I think this is not
correct since the Server could be sending different files in various codes
(applets for example) and most people don't have access to the server to
configure it to send UTF-8 characters, for example. I think the browser should
use whatever char. coding the html page describes and override any other coding.
Firefox correctly detects the code included in the <meta http-equiv...
charset=UTF-8> tag and shows it in the "Page Info" window but ignores it, if the
Server is configured to send ISO-8859-1, for example.

Comment 1

[Jo Hermans]

The HTML 4.01 standard defines otherwise : the HTTP-header has a higher priority
than the META-tag. See <http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/charset.html#h-5.2.2>

Comment 2

[Bill Mason]

Our behavior is correct, see comment 1.

Comment 3

[Tino Rodriguez]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Our behavior is correct, see comment 1.

(In reply to comment #2)
> Our behavior is correct, see comment 1.
I can see you are right. But Firefox still does something that seems very
confusing to me. It displays the char using ISO-8859-1 from the Header but it
displays the char. code from the META-tag. This desn't seem consistent. 

Comment 4

[Tino Rodriguez]

(In reply to comment #2)
> Our behavior is correct, see comment 1.

(In reply to comment #2)
> Our behavior is correct, see comment 1.
I can see you are right. But Firefox still does something that seems very
confusing to me. It displays the char using ISO-8859-1 from the Header but it
displays the char. code from the META-tag. This desn't seem consistent. 
(In reply to comment #2)
> Our behavior is correct, see comment 1.
What I meant is... it displays the META-tag code in the Pafe Info window. Thanks.