Re: What method for Location?

>I looked into that section.  The spec does not explicitly say which method
>should be used for the NEWURL.  The notes for 301 and 302 responses,
>     Note: When automatically redirecting a POST request after receiving
>     a 302 status code, some existing HTTP/1.0 user agents will
>     erroneously change it into a GET request.
>imply that POST should be used.  But why not say it explicitly?

Because it doesn't need to.  Redirecting the request means redirecting
the request (which includes the method); changing the method means
changing the request.

>On the other hand, the 303 response does have the need to redirect
>"POST URL" to "GET NEWURL".  A header in the response should be added
>to indicate the new method to be used.  If this header is not in the spec,
>it should be added.

No, there is never any ambiguity about what method should be used.

  a) For 301, 302: always the same method as the original request
  b) For 303: always GET

Thus, there is nothing for the server to communicate to the client
other than the response code.

 ...Roy T. Fielding
    Department of Information & Computer Science    (fielding@ics.uci.edu)
    University of California, Irvine, CA 92697-3425    fax:+1(714)824-4056
    http://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/