Re: HTTP Partial Download Query

"Yogesh Bang" <Y.Bang@zensar.com> writes:

> One of the requirement for this is that the Client can even be any device
> (PDA,cell phones etc) where the BROWSER is capable of accepting only
> few BYTES at a time. 
> Considering that the BROWSER and WEBSERVER both are capable of understanding 
> HTTP1.1 and BROWSER can accept only 100KB at a time,I have following query
> 
> 1)Is it the responsibility of the BROWSER to make multiple GET request
> to download a large DIGITAL CONTENT(say 100KB in every request) with
> specifying Range parameter every time.
> 
> OR
> 2)Is it the responsibility of the Web-Server/Server-Side program to 
> split the DIGITAL CONTENT in chunk of say 100KB and send the whole
> DIGITAL CONTENT in ONE RESPONSE with many MULTUPARTS seperated by seperator.
> Each PART is of say 100KB . 

The server won't know what the size limitations in the client are
unless the client communicates them in some way.  You have two
choices:

A) Express the limitation using TCP flow control (the client should
   limit the TCP window to what it can accept).

OR

B) Express the limitation using HTTP Range (your choice 1).  I have
   seen this done in exactly this application.  See Alexs comments on
   the possible problems with proxies that don't honor Range (is there
   any emperical data about how deployed proxies respond to this?).

Note that neither of these has anything to do with the authentication,
and both are client side driven.

Received on Tuesday, 10 December 2002 07:17:34 UTC