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Editorial issue 304-SHOULD

From: Jim Gettys <jg@pa.dec.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 1998 04:43:03 -0800
Message-Id: <9803121243.AA03854@pachyderm.pa.dec.com>
To: http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
X-Mailing-List: <http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com> archive/latest/5456

I think Henry is right...  Please correct me if I'm wrong.

			- Jim

attached mail follows:


As the title says, this is pretty minor....

The wording for handling the If-Modified-Since header uses a MUST when
describing when to send back a 304 response. My understanding of
MUST/SHOULD/MAY is that MUST is to be used for requirements neccessary for
interoperability or correct functioning of the protocol. Since the sending
of a 304 response doesn't impact interoperability or correctness (the
protocol is unharmed but less efficient if a server ignores I-M-S and always
sends back the data), this should probably be a SHOULD. 

(And no, IIS doesn't ignore I-M-S. This was brought up to me by a
non-Microsoft person writing an ISAPI app). 

Henry
Received on Thursday, 12 March 1998 04:44:56 UTC

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