# Local and Global Request Preferences

A Request can be decorated with a set of preferences described in this section. Some of the preferences are bound to the end user, like for example the preferred natural language, and some of the preferences are reflecting the capabilities of the application, for example if it is capable of showing a postscript document to the user. The current set is

Format converters
  The set of content-types that the application understands. This can for example be `text/html`.
Natural languages
  The user's preferred set of natural langauges, for example `fr` for French
Content encodings
  The set of content encodings that the application understands, for example `gzip` and `compress`
Character sets
  The character set preferred by the user, for example `us-ascii`

When libwww is first started, it knows nothing about these preferences. By specifying preferences, the application can tailor libwww to fit the features supported by the application and by the end user. In the following section we will describe how the application can set up the various preferences. All preferences described in this chapter use lists to group the sets together. As we will see later in this chapter, the reason for this is that lists are an easy way of assigning specific preferences to various requests.

Adding and Deleting Format Converters

Adding and Deleting Natural Language

Adding and Deleting Content Encoders and Decoders

Adding and Deleting Character sets

Adding and Deleting Global Preferences

Adding and Deleting Lobal Preferences