- From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@avron.ICS.UCI.EDU>
- Date: Sat, 02 Dec 1995 00:52:13 -0800
- To: Dave Kristol <dmk@allegra.att.com>
- Cc: http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
> Several HTTP/1.1 methods (POST, e.g.) propose a two-phase send, first
> headers, then body. A server can respond with 100 Continue after
> receiving the headers.
>
> My concern: I don't think what's described can be implemented. The
> spec. calls for a five-second timeout. In the face of a chain of
> proxies, early agents in the chain are likely to timeout and proceed,
> and the body is likely to cross paths with the 100 response. In fact,
> no one timeout is ever likely to be correct for all circumstances.
It doesn't have to be correct -- it exists as a safety-valve, allowing
almost all servers (even with multiple levels of persistent-connection
proxies) to send back a terminate response before the user agent has
sent a large portion of the request data. If it misses, that's okay --
at least it tried.
Perhaps more importantly, it forces the implementor to think about
these issues.
...Roy T. Fielding
Department of Information & Computer Science (fielding@ics.uci.edu)
University of California, Irvine, CA 92717-3425 fax:+1(714)824-4056
http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/
Received on Saturday, 2 December 1995 01:12:05 UTC