Re: mid-course errors

In message <9704141331.AA04939@zp>, Dave Kristol writes:
>Here's something that has puzzled me about HTTP server
>implementations.  What happens if the server encounters an error after
>it sends, say, a "200 OK" response and part of the entity body?
>Example cases include an origin server that gets a timeout from a CGI
>part way through relaying the CGI's output, or when a proxy acts as a
>pure relay and, for example, its connection to the next hop server (is
>that upstream or downstream? :-) breaks.  The server has no way to
>signal to its client that the previously claimed success has now turned
>into an error.

The only useful thing a server could say at that point is the equivalent
of 500 Internal Server Error, which is no better than just cutting-off
transmission of the message and closing the connection.  If the message
is properly delimited, the client should be capable of seeing that
something is missing and act appropriately.  A multiplexing HTTP should
be capable of terminating a "thread" early without harming the rest of
the connection, so I think trying to get HTTP/1.x to handle it would
be a mistake.

....Roy