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Re: LYNX-DEV Automatic proxies
From: |
pg |
Subject: |
Re: LYNX-DEV Automatic proxies |
Date: |
Tue, 17 Feb 1998 12:12:13 -0700 (MST) |
In a recent note, Heikki Kantola said:
> Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 18:25:00 +0200
>
> According to Kevin R.J. Ellwood <address@hidden>:
> > I was wondering if you could tell me if lynx will support automatic proxy
> > configuration (as opposed to manual proxy). I have read the faq and I see
> > how I am supposed to set up the unix environment variables for manual
> > proxy. However, no mention is made of Automatic proxy configuration
>
> If I'm not mistaken, those automatic proxy systems are implemented in
> JavaScript, which Lynx doesn't support. However, as JavaScript is just
> text you should be able to extract the needed information for Lynx's
> manual proxy settings quite easily.
>
There are a couple reasons this likely to be unsatisfactory:
1) If you're planning on doing the extraction automatically,
remember that while JavaScript is "just text", that text is
the representation of a computer program. Interpreting that
text requires that the extractor be, in the general case,
a Java interpreter.
2) Lynx's proxy definitions are static; Automatic Proxy exists to
provide dynamic proxy identification. For example, for a
while we had a situation like:
emporium.stortek.com requires proxy; otherwise
*.stortek.com requires no proxy; otherwise
* requires proxy.
This configuration is handled easily with a couple "if" statements
in a script. In Lynx, it can be handled only by enumerating all
the hosts that match the wildcard in the second line, but aren't
"emporium". There might be hundreds.
-- gil