- From: Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com>
- Date: Sun, 10 Sep 1995 22:54:31 PDT
- To: sjk@amazon.com
- Cc: fielding@beach.w3.org, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Roy said: A proxy cannot forward a method it doesn't understand. And Shel waded in, but I thought I would throw in a few punches, too. Proxy's most definitely can forward any method that they get. For example, a simple proxy might react to <method> <fullurl> <httpversion> <headerstuff> blah blah ... and parse <fullurl>. If <fullurl> doesn't start with "http://", it must of course understand <method> so it can translate the protocol. Otherwise, it could just open a TCP connection to <fullurl>'s host and port, and send <method> <restofurl> <version> <headerstuff> blah blah ... down the TCP IP connection, and return whatever it gets on the way back, and close the connection to the other side whenever one side closes the connection. This works for things where the connection stays open, and all kinds of new methods. Of course, proxies have to understand the semantics of <method> and <httpversion> in order to do CACHING. Yes, you need to know what someone really intended before you start saving away the response and feeding it back to clients later.
Received on Sunday, 10 September 1995 22:56:41 UTC