Re: Worries about content-length

At 12:14 PM 5/9/95, David - Morris wrote:
>For the subset of cases where the size isn't known
>(e.g., CGI output), data could be delivered in a series of precisely
>size computed chunks with the last chunk so marked.

I don't understand this at all. A CGI script delivers one chunk of output
to the HTTP server software, which in turn pushes it out the designated
port. Future CGI scripts *could* count characters before passing the chunk
back, but I'm sure that few do this today. (Certainly none of the one's
I've written do...)

It sounds like you want to force CGI scripts to measure their output so
that the HTTP server software can add a correct length statement to the
beginning of the output. If this is possible, it works fine, and will be
0.00000000000001% better than a pseudo-random string chosen by the HTTP
server software to be the tail.

Nothing suggested so far has said that this will replace content-length
where content-length is easily computable; the proposal was a method that
would supplant content-length when it isn't easy to compute such as in
existing CGI scripts and CGI scripts that are written by novices.

Received on Tuesday, 9 May 1995 14:02:10 UTC