Re: etag or itag?

• From: Koen Holtman <koen@win.tue.nl>
• Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2000 10:46:49 +0100 (MET)
• To: danielh@crosslink.net
• Cc: www-talk@w3.org
• Message-Id: <200003200946.KAA00488@wsooti41.win.tue.nl>

>Whilst reviewing the rfc for delta encoding, I realized that
>my understanding of "etag" may be incorrect.

The main reference on etags in HTTP is of rfc2616.

[...]
>I now wonder if this is incorect. 
>     Instead, should the etag be associated with the underlying 
>    "instance"? 
>That is, with the contents of a response BEFORE any content 
>codings, OR range selection, have been applied. 
[...]

HTTP/1.1 allows gzipping (or any other encoding) at two levels:
content coding and transfer coding.  A different transfer coding or
range selection does _not_ affect the etag.  If the content coding is
different however, the etag must also be different.

This is the way I recall things at least, I don't know if rfc2616 says
all this that clearly.

Koen.

Received on Monday, 20 March 2000 04:46:53 UTC