Redirection inherits METHOD?

Just wondering what the feeling is on a redirection inheriting the 'method'
of the original request is.

Say i've got a form being posted, and issue a redirection to a normal
document (not another CGI script).

Should the form contents be reposted to the new destination?  Some of the
language in section 6.2.2 seems to imply this, but in other cases it
doesn't make sense to inherit them.

6.2.2: .... The action required can sometimes be carried out by the client
without interaction with the user, but it is strongly recommended that this
only takes place if the method usd in the request is idempotent (GET or
HEAD)

According to this, something like:

HEAD /movedobject HTTP/1.0

That gets back:

HTTP/1.0 301 Moved
Location: http://somehost/realobject

The 'head' of http://somehost/realobject should be retrieved.

But you wouldn't want to do this for the 'DELETE' method, etc.

I think this was discussed before, but I thought the outcome was 'yes
redirect using POST', but I just ran into a form that redirects to a static
page, and the server fails to serve the document when you 'POST'.  I can't
get to the working group pages for some reason to check the archives
either.

-Bill P.

Received on Sunday, 18 June 1995 11:07:00 UTC