- From: Jeffrey Mogul <mogul@pa.dec.com>
- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 97 12:10:03 PST
- To: http-wg%cuckoo.hpl.hp.com@hplb.hpl.hp.com
Henry Sanders writes:
There's also the sentence
If none of the entity tags match, or if "*" is given and no
current entity exists, then the server MAY perform the requested
method as if the If-None-Match header field did not exist.
Which is what I was referring to when I mentioned treating the
header as if it didn't exist. I like your proposed alterations, we
just need to strike this sentence too.
Yes, the quoted sentence is also wrong, but striking it would be
a mistake. The problem is that this sentence combines two different
cases, and the appropriate action is different in each one.
I suggest replacing it with
If none of the entity tags match, then the server MAY perform
the requested method as if the If-None-Match header field did
not exist, but MUST also ignore any If-Modified-Since header
field(s) in the request. That is, if no entity tags match, then
the server MUST not return a 304 (Not Modified) response.
If "*" is given and no current entity exists, then the server
MAY perform the requested method as if the If-None-Match header
field did not exist.
The latter paragraph doesn't depend on whether or not an I-M-S field
is included, since an entity that does not exist cannot have a
modification date.
Also, this next paragraph:
If the request would, without the If-None-Match header
field, result in anything other than a 2xx status, then the
If-None-Match header MUST be ignored.
is also wrong; it should be
If the request would, without the If-None-Match header
field, result in anything other than a 2xx or 304 status,
then the If-None-Match header MUST be ignored.
I.e., don't ignore If-None-Match just because the I-M-S value
matches the current modification date.
-Jeff
Received on Monday, 17 November 1997 12:18:08 UTC