json output must use correct mime-type

AFAICT from RFC 4627, the charset parameter is not allowed with application/json. For comparison, see RFC 4329 that explicitly mentions charset as an optional parameter.

Appearently IE has some issues with application/json:
http://www.entwicklungsgedanken.de/2008/06/06/problems-with-internet-exp...

Not sure whether this is relevant for Drupal, though.

drupal_set_header() was just renamed to drupal_add_http_header() in #451604: Rename drupal_set_header().

Given that Drupal’s current behaviour is in violation of RFC 4627 that clearly states “The MIME media type for JSON text is application/json.” as defined by IANA, I’m taking the liberty of elevating this to critical.

I’ve attached a new patch. Easy fix :)

Elevating to critical.

This patch changes the comment, as in the above version. The patch looks fine.

This doesn't break anything, and as a consequence is not critical.

Otherwise, I'm fine with the change.

retest

#13: 2010-05-01-json-content-type.patch queued for re-testing.

#13: 2010-05-01-json-content-type.patch queued for re-testing.

Well, the test checked out, and it’s been manually reviewed, so I suppose this is RTBC.

#21: No, I managed to miss that, sorry. Here’s a new patch which should be compliant.

Committed to CVS HEAD. Thanks.

Reopening for backport to D6.

Create for D6 module work with JSON, to not change API))

D6 backport.

-  // We are returning JavaScript, so tell the browser.
-  drupal_set_header('Content-Type: text/javascript; charset=utf-8');
+  // We are returning JSON, so tell the browser.
+  drupal_add_http_header('Content-Type', 'application/json');

drupal_add_http_header() is not defined in D6.

Oops.

Thanks, pushed, committed.

In some cases in different browsers encoding is broken without specifying utf-8 charset. Considering #3 it is wrong to include charset in header, but following common sense and on practice it would be usefull to include it. Furthermore RFC does not dissallow charset parameter, it just haven't mentioned about it's usage.

#34: I'd like to have some more concrete evidence of this. To my knowledge, all major browsers support the application/json mime type correctly.

#36: Here is some example:
Valid case:

drupal_set_header('Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8');
print drupal_to_js(array('åæéø'));

Broken utf encoding:
print drupal_json(array('åæéø'));
- could be reproduced in some browsers, randomly appears on different clients according to OS, etc.

Ok, I've made a small test case module: https://github.com/mikl/drupal-json_test

You can see it in action at http://hoegh.org/json_test

Once the JSON data is loaded, it's supposed to say:

Internationalization test string is:
Iñtërnâtiônàlizætiøn

Amongst my devices (mostly Apple stuff), I haven't been able to find a browser that doesn't render that correctly.

Please provide examples of browsers that can't render that page correctly.

Closing this, unless you have a test case where this actually fails.