why no-cache is not reload

• From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@avron.ICS.UCI.EDU>
• Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 16:52:10 -0800
• To: hardie@nasa.gov
• Cc: http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
• Message-Id: <9602151652.aa23130@paris.ics.uci.edu>

Ted writes:
> I believe switching to cache-control: reload from clients and 
> cache-control: no-cache would solve this particular confusion.

No, it wouldn't.  For example, the following is a Reload:

    GET / HTTP/1.1
    Cache-control: no-cache

and the following is not

    GET / HTTP/1.1
    Cache-control: no-cache
    If-Modified-Since: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 15:05:20 GMT

The no-cache directive does not mean "Reload" -- it never has (even when
used in Pragma).

.....Roy

Received on Thursday, 15 February 1996 17:05:33 UTC