Automatic retry

> (See my earlier post bringing up this objection:
> <URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1996q2/0336.html>;
> Koen Holtman suggested specific changes (too strong) in:
> <URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1996q2/0357.html>.
>  I don't see how the current draft addresses this objection.)

I think everyone agreed that this was an oversight and would be
addressed in the next draft. I'm not sure Jim's rewrite will follow
all of your proposed recommendations, though, although the sense of
them was generally accepted.

================================================================
Proposal:  Section 8.1.5 (para. 4), and Section 8.2 (initial paras.)
need to be amended to specify that the automatic retry requirement
applies ONLY to methods considered idempotent; other methods
MUST NOT be automatically retried, although clients MAY offer a
human operator the choice of retrying the request.  (The end of
Section 9.4 would not then need to be changed.)

Section 9.2.1 should identify both "safe" and "idempotent" as
distinguished semantic properties of methods, and define GET,
HEAD, PUT, and DELETE to be "idempotent" in the sense that
(aside from error and expiration issues) the user's responsibility
for N>0 identical requests is the same as that for 1 request.

Received on Thursday, 30 May 1996 16:44:15 UTC