Validate `meta[http-equiv]`

[Rick Viscomi]

In general, the WHATWG supports a limited set of keywords that are valid attribute values for http-equiv:

• content-language
• content-type
• default-style
• refresh
• set-cookie
• x-ua-compatible
• content-security-policy

Notable omissions include:

• origin-trial
• etag
• x-* (besides x-ua-compatible
• cache-control
• expires
• pragma
• accept-ch
• content-style-type
• content-script-type

These are all http-equiv attribute values used by over 100k pages, according to HTTP Archive, in descending order of popularity.

See the full results and query, if interested

http_equiv	pages
x-ua-compatible	5,849,869
content-type	4,064,550
origin-trial	3,741,447
etag	432,755
x-wix-published-version	432,595
x-wix-application-instance-id	432,594
x-wix-meta-site-id	432,593
content-language	430,009
cache-control	351,196
expires	301,664
pragma	296,342
accept-ch	232,735
x-dns-prefetch-control	176,712
content-style-type	172,497
content-script-type	136,871
imagetoolbar	97,656
cleartype	93,802
content-security-policy	82,064
refresh	28,243
keywords	28,027
last-modified	14,478
x-xrds-location	13,495
page-enter	11,945
encoding	10,936
description	10,716
x-rim-auto-match	10,361
msthemecompatible	9,564
reply-to	9,113
language	8,653
content-location	6,896
copyright	6,435
x-frame-options	6,323
window-target	4,930
title	4,601
x-ua-compatiable	4,493
page-exit	4,468
pics-label	3,269
screenorientation	3,105
audience	2,378
author	2,140
access-control-allow-origin	2,072
dc.description	1,836
cache	1,759
robots	1,501
distribution	1,464
vary	1,386
x-webkit-csp	1,376
p3p	1,258
revisit-after	1,226
default-style	1,054

Query:

WITH meta AS (
  SELECT
    page,
    LOWER(JSON_VALUE(meta, '$.http-equiv')) AS http_equiv
  FROM
    `httparchive.all.pages`,
    UNNEST(JSON_QUERY_ARRAY(custom_metrics, '$.almanac.meta-nodes.nodes')) AS meta
  WHERE
    date = '2023-06-01' AND
    client = 'mobile' AND
    is_root_page
)


SELECT
  http_equiv,
  COUNT(DISTINCT page) AS pages
FROM
  meta
WHERE
  http_equiv IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY
  http_equiv
ORDER BY
  pages DESC

The biggest one that jumps out to me is origin-trial, which is used on ~375k pages. Given that it is explicitly supported and endorsed by Chrome, Edge, and Firefox (Safari doesn't support origin trials) I've left a comment on the WHATWG issue recommending its standardization.

I don't think capo.js should complain about spec validity for these keywords as long as browsers support them. But there are some specific usages worth validating.

http-equiv=content-type

According to the W3C spec, the content attribute of a meta[http-equiv=content-type] tag must be set to a "specially formatted string providing a character encoding name... in exactly the following order":

1. The literal string "text/html;".
2. Optionally, one or more space characters.
3. The literal string "charset=".
4. One of the following:
   • For documents in the HTML syntax: A character encoding name.
   • For documents in the XML syntax: Any case-insensitive match for the string "UTF-8".

The WHATWG further requires that the character encoding name be exactly utf-8 and that:

A document must not contain both a meta element with an http-equiv attribute in the Encoding declaration state and a meta element with the charset attribute present.

capo.js should validate that HTML5 pages set a charset to utf-8 and don't have redundant meta tags. Not sure about HTTP header vs meta tag redundancy, but that's also worth exploring (related #59).