Re: Assigned paths

On Thu, 26 Jun 1997, Ross Patterson wrote:

> RFC 2169 specifies a technique for resolving Uniform Resource Names by
> sending an HTTP GET request for "/uri-res/<service>?<urn>".  The caching
> recommendations (sorry, I can't recall who or what to cite) suggest not
> caching any response for "/cgi-bin/..." unless the cache has some reason
> to believe it is cachable.  While the latter is a common path form, at
> least on Unix-based HTTP servers, there's nothing historically special
> about the former.

Actually the '?' is another signal which makes that URL default
non-cachable.

> If we're going to see a growth in "special" path patterns, I think we
> need to quarantine them into a subtree so as not to collide with
> pre-existing "normal" paths.  The alternative is to accept that existing
> URLs will collide from time to time with newly-published special paths,
> and that some breakage will occur.  I'm not too thrilled with that
> choice myself.

I think the right answer is that new patterns aren't needed. Proper use
of HTTP/1.1 caching controls cover the issues.  The current patterns are
provided to keep from breaking existing applications.

Dave Morris

Received on Thursday, 26 June 1997 12:33:28 UTC