Mailing-List: contact dev-help@httpd.apache.org; run by ezmlm
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: dev@httpd.apache.org
Received-SPF: pass (athena.apache.org: domain of nickgearls@gmail.com
 designates 209.85.212.169 as permitted sender)
Message-ID: <501102DC.7090901@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2012 10:42:04 +0200
From: Nick Gearls <nickgearls@gmail.com>
Reply-To: nickgearls@gmail.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64;
 rv:14.0) Gecko/20120713 Thunderbird/14.0
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Development Apache <dev@httpd.apache.org>
Subject: httpd 3
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

Hello,

It was requested to provide some ideas for the direction to go with httpd 3.
One of the main issues I'd like to be tackled is the lack of consistency 
in the directives for linked functionalities.

For instance:
  - Some modules have access to variables set with Setenv, but not those 
set with SetenvIf (and the opposite)
- Setenv & SetenvIf are not processed sequentially (first all Setenv, 
then all SetenvIf)
  - SetenvIf can overwrite a variable (set with SetenvIf ) inside a 
location, but Setenv cannot
  - Every module is using its own tag parsing to access environment 
variables (and request info).
    This is not only redundant, but
      - variable expansion is not available in some modules
      - the syntax is not always the same
      - all variables are not available in all modules (ex: SSL 
variables are not always available)
  - Filters set with AddOutputFilterByType are not removed with 
RemoveOutputFilter
  - Modules using outgoing connections (ex: OCSP requests in mod_ssl) do 
not benefit from the pooling features available in mod_proxy
  - RewriteRule[P] can be used instead of ProxyPass but ProxyPass 
directives are executed first, even if a RewriteRule appears first
  - etc.

In a general way, there is absolutely no info about this lack of consistency and, every time a question is asked, developers have more or less to guess the answer (by looking at the code I guess).

Could this problem be solved by
  - centralizing some functionalities and generalizing some mechanisms
  - formalize the way to use them
  - defining a directive processing order based on the functionality instead of the module
  - and DOCUMENT all of this

This would really be a huge benefit for advanced use of httpd.

Thanks,

Nick