Re: HTTP 301 responses for POST

Hi Julian,

--On December 23, 2008 2:24:21 PM +0100 Julian Reschke 
<julian.reschke@gmx.de> wrote:

>>
>> The 301 and 302 sections of HTTPbis seems to make the implicit, or
>> perhaps not clearly stated, assumption that the new request shall use
>> the same method as the request triggering the response.
>
> Just for the record: this text hasn't been changes since RFC2616...

The current "Note" for 301 is:

      Note: When automatically redirecting a POST request after
      receiving a 301 status code, some existing HTTP/1.0 user agents
      will erroneously change it into a GET request.

The reality is that it is not just HTTP/1.0 user agents that do this now 
but also HTTP/1.1. I think we need to reflect this reality more clearly 
(e.g., just remove the text "HTTP/1.0").

BTW this behavior is encouraged not only by user agents but also HTTP 
client libraries that do it. e.g. check out the note in the Python 
documentation: 
<http://www.python.org/doc/2.5/lib/http-redirect-handler.html>.

-- 
Cyrus Daboo