[HTTPCORE-516] Reason phrase in HttpStatus constants are not needed due to changes in RFC 7230

• Type: Task
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Not A Problem
• Component/s: HttpCore
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Viktor Chmel
• Created: 28/Feb/18 09:53
• Updated: 02/Mar/18 12:46
• Resolved: 02/Mar/18 12:46

Description

Introduction

After updating one (Serivce-A) of our Web services to Tomcat 8.5 we realised that HTTP Status header changed according to RFC 7230 

RFC 7230 states that clients should ignore reason phrases in HTTP/1.1 response messages. Since the reason phrase is optional, Tomcat no longer sends it. As a result the system property org.apache.coyote.USE_CUSTOM_STATUS_MSG_IN_HEADER is no longer used and has been removed. "

Some temporary workaround exists (set deprecated option sendReasonPhrase to true), but it will be impossible in tomcat 9.

Problem

Ok, what about HttpCore?

Another our service (Service-B) use HttpStatus lib and its constants like SC_OK to assert response from Service-A. And after updating to tomcat 8.5 it became to fail assertion every time. Why? Now SC_OK = "200 OK", but according to RFC 7230 must be just "200". The same issue with another status constans.

I`m not expert in you library, but smth must be done to support new standard from one hand and to support legacy http servers from another.