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Re: 13.1.2 Warnings

From: Ben Laurie <ben@gonzo.ben.algroup.co.uk>
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 1996 19:57:48 +0100 (BST)
To: ben@algroup.co.uk
Cc: luotonen@netscape.com, masinter@parc.xerox.com, http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <9610171957.aa14448@gonzo.ben.algroup.co.uk>
X-Mailing-List: <http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com> archive/latest/1791
Ben Laurie wrote:
> 
> Ari Luotonen wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > > - HTTP/1.1 & digest:
> > >    Expecting RFC Real Soon Now.
> > >    Complaints, editorial advice, ambiguities welcome.
> > 
> > 13.1.2 Warnings says:
> > 
> >     ...
> >     Warnings are always cachable, because they never weaken the transparency
> >     of a response. This means that warnings can be passed to HTTP/1.0 caches
> >     without danger; such caches will simply pass the warning along as an
> >     entity-header in the response.
> >     ...
> > 
> > This is not right.  HTTP/1.0 cache will cache this header, and the
> > Warning will remain in the cache file even if the entity is up-to-date
> > checked later.  So clients could e.g. see a warning saying that the
> > response may be stale even if the proxy just did an up-to-date check
> > and it was ok.
> 
> Wouldn't that mean that the HTTP/1.0 cache was out-of-date wrt the upstream
> cache (and hence would refetch and lose the warning header)? Or am I missing
> something?

Before anyone else brings me down to Earth, I'll admit I am missing something.
Of course, the upstream cache may be a different one next time, or any one of
a whole host of possibilities too tedious to enumerate. This would appear to
be a problem.

Cheers,

Ben.

-- 
Ben Laurie                  Phone: +44 (181) 994 6435
Freelance Consultant and    Fax:   +44 (181) 994 6472
Technical Director          Email: ben@algroup.co.uk
A.L. Digital Ltd,           URL: http://www.algroup.co.uk
London, England.            Apache Group member (http://www.apache.org)
Received on Thursday, 17 October 1996 12:58:11 UTC

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