Question regarding the Cache Digest feature

• From: Simeon Frid <simeon.frid@gmail.com>
• Date: Tue, 16 May 2017 15:53:44 +0000
• To: ietf-http-wg@w3.org
• Message-Id: <CAGp_bqdh=EZ5Gu+FLMyo0sOB_3W8ZTR1PS9pTW76gxxviFHRZA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

I have a question regarding how this feature will work on the client-side. From reading the work document I don't quite understand whether this will support invalidating a client asset, even if it has not expired in the client resource cache (i.e. doing a cache bust from the server).

I'm absolutely new to standard works and am probably not using the correct terminology, but I'll try to explain: Let's say a client sends a cache digest including an asset X, and the server responds: "Your asset X is stale". My question is whether the client will then update asset X, even if asset X is fresh according to the client's resource cache.

If this mechanism works as I'm thinking, this feature could be used as an alternative to URL cache busting (invalidating a fresh client-cached resource by renaming the resource URL from the server-side). Is that a correct assumption?

Kindly,
Simeon

Received on Wednesday, 17 May 2017 07:01:02 UTC