Re: 12, 14.43: resource arguments and conneg

> Larry Masinter <masinter@parc.xerox.com> writes:
>> All your missing is that the text apparently doesn't say
>> something that we all assume, which one might otherwise write as: 
>>
>>	Vary: {entity-body}, {method}

Ugh.

Paul Burchard <burchard@cs.princeton.edu> replies:

> Right...though this example shows why it may be worth spelling out  
> the assumptions.  The "argument" of a method consists of not just  
> the bare entity body in the request, but also any associated *entity  
> headers* (as caches must be aware).  So the "understood variation"  
> of a response must be (to use your notation):
> 
>    Vary: {request-URI}, {method}, {{entity-headers}, {entity-body}}

Double-ugh.  While I appreciate the semantics of the discussion,
please do us all a favor and not illustrate the semantics with a
realistic-looking example of bogus syntax; some poor fool might
read it and then implement the Vary header that way.

More discussion of what is assumed by Vary can be found in
<9606030156.aa05440@paris.ics.uci.edu>.


 ...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 Monday, 3 June 1996 03:07:31 UTC