Re: Updating Entity Headers with 304s

On Feb 9, 2007, at 9:41 PM, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> However, an implementer has interpreted the stated intent to mean  
> that a cache should not allow entity headers to be updated by 304s.  
> See: <http://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=39647>.

The problem report is about the internal handling of a gateway response
that doesn't even use HTTP, so the text in the spec doesn't apply
except in the most abstract sense.

> There's a certain logic to both positions. Does anyone recall what  
> the original intent was, and do we need a clarification here?

The intent is that the refreshed cache entry matches what would have  
been
sent in a 200 response.  Anything else would be considered an error.

In this case, the back-end has an error that is generating a text/html
response intermittently, and the unset that Ruediger added is just  
making
sure that the cache filter doesn't interpret the response incorrectly.
The right solution is to just fix mod_jk, and I think that was done as
well, since masking a back-end error is a bad idea.  mod_jk does not use
HTTP, so the specification does not apply.

....Roy