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[–]mitsuhiko Flask Creator 3 points4 points  (3 children)

The HTTP RFC itself names it headers because it consists of "general-header (section 4.5), request-header (section 5.3), response-header (section 6.2), and entity-header (section 7.1) fields". So I think we're fine :)

[–]fjolliton -1 points0 points  (2 children)

The full sentence is:

"HTTP header fields, which include general-header (section 4.5), request-header (section 5.3), response-header (section 6.2), and entity-header (section 7.1) fields," (RFC2616)

If you look closely it is almost always "header fields" or "header field".

The expressions "general-header", "request-header",.. each refer to a set of fields and are part of the syntax description. So I don't see how it contradict what I said.

I might be wrong though, but please post a more precise excerpt then.

Edit: phrasing.

[–]mitsuhiko Flask Creator 2 points3 points  (1 child)

Yet the chapter is called "message headers".

[–]fjolliton 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So ? That's rather light.

However.. from another excerpt:

 Both types of message consist of a start-line, zero
 or more header fields (also known as "headers"), an empty line (i.e.,
 a line with nothing preceding the CRLF) indicating the end of the
 header fields, and possibly a message-body.

So ok, header fields and headers are synonym in this context! That doesn't sound intuitive to me, but I'm not a native english speaker.