Web Agent Guides › Web Agent Configuration Guide › Protecting Web Applications › Set the HTTP Header Encoding Spec

Set the HTTP Header Encoding Spec

The HTTPHeaderEncodingSpec setting affects the encoding of all HTTP header values and all custom HTTP-COOKIE responses.

Use this parameter to support Web applications expecting localized text in specific encodings. Since cookies pass back and forth between the browser and portal through the HTTP protocol, you should use the RFC-2047 HTTPWrapSpec if your chosen encoding puts characters that HTTP traffic considers illegal into the cookies.

For example, some Shift-JIS characters will cause undesirable results if not further encoded by RFC-2047.

For Kanji characters, you can use SECP932, which is a superset of SHIFT-JIS. Though SHIFT-JIS can be used for most Kanji encoding and decoding, CP932 covers an even larger character set.

When HTTPWrapSpec is used, first the data is encoded according to the HTTPHeaderEncodingSpec, then the data is further encoded following the RFC-2047 specification.

The syntax for the parameter is:

encoding_spec, wrapping_spec

The encoding_spec is a text string that represents one of the following encoding types: UTF-8, Shift-JIS, EUC-J, or ISO-2022 JP. Specify the encoding type you want the Agent to use.

The wrapping_spec is the wrapping specification, which must be RFC-2047. Although this variable is optional, we strongly recommend that you include the wrapping specification because the encoding type you choose may generate byte codes that are not compatible with the HTTP protocol.

This is especially true if you use custom HTTP Cookie responses that contain double-byte encoded data. For example, some Shift-JIS characters cause undesirable results if they are not further encoded by RFC-2047. The wrapping also tells the receiving application the type and nature of the encoding so the application can better interpret the encoded text. For example, you may set the parameter to Shift-JIS,RFC-2047.

When RFC-2047 is used, the Agent first encodes the data based on the chosen encoding specification and then further encodes the data following the RFC-2047 specification.

Note: If you leave the HTTPHeaderEncodingSpec setting blank, the default is UTF-8 with no wrapping.