- From: Shel Kaphan <sjk@amazon.com>
- Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 17:51:59 -0800
- To: Paul Leach <paulle@microsoft.com>
- Cc: sjk@amazon.com, http-caching@pa.dec.com, mogul@pa.dec.com
Paul Leach writes: > ] I just got an idea that might be simpler than trying to control this > ] using headers, and doesn't require convincing any HTML people of > ] anything. Just invent some new methods that implement > ] side-effect-free versions of POST, etc. > ] Then we can define the cache actions differently based on > ] the method. > > If it turns out that the client side can know to use these, fine. If > the server is really the only one that can certifiy that (e.g.) a POST > is side effect free, then this won't help. > > Paul > > In this case the one who controls this is the HTML writer, I think. In one case you could have a form defined using <form method=POST action=/bla/bla> and in the other case you could have <form method=POST-WITH-NO-SIDE-EFFECTS action=/bla/bla> The browser would have to transform that into a different request than the normal kind of POST. So the client side knows to use the method because the html writer said so. There's still the danger that someone will do the wrong thing "by hand", but surely this is not the only case of that. --Shel
Received on Friday, 5 January 1996 02:08:54 UTC