- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Sat, 9 Sep 1995 19:37:19 PDT
- To: http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
The problem in content negotiation is that * most documents are available only in one format * fully disclosing accepted types takes lots of protocol So, what if client sends to server 'accept-signature' which is a hash (MD5 or something smaller) of all headers that are relevant to content negotiation. Server either has seen / remembers this signature or not. If not, AND if the document is actually available in multiple formats, the server sends back a response asking for expansion of accept information. Client sends back full accept headers, server remembers them (for a while) and then uses the information in content negotiation. The 'accept-signature' doesn't change rapidly; many like-configured browsers will have the same signature; servers that get multiple hits from the same or similar clients won't have to recompute/reinterpret the signature; servers that don't need to do content negotiation ignore it all, the headers are small most of the time. The signature for embedded images can be different than the signature for regular links. This could even be combined with smaller indications of the 'main' type.
Received on Sunday, 10 September 1995 03:26:54 UTC