Re: body on HEAD errror response

• From: Roy T. Fielding <fielding@ebuilt.com>
• Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2001 14:41:47 -0700
• To: Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org>
• Cc: http-wg@cuckoo.hpl.hp.com
• Message-ID: <20011009144147.C1395@waka.ebuilt.net>

On Tue, Oct 09, 2001 at 01:58:41PM -0700, Larry Masinter wrote:
> I believe that the HTTP spec is wrong, and should say that 2xx
> responses to HEAD must not contain a body, but other responses
> should.

That would be contrary to all past discussion of HEAD and all implementations
of HTTP prior to 1997.  The only origin server that I know of that returns
a body on HEAD requests is IIS when used with an ASP object that takes
complete control of the socket and ignores the HTTP spec.  All other
instances of that behavior have been from broken firewall proxies or
gateways.  It certainly does not constitute a correct implementation.

....Roy

Received on Tuesday, 9 October 2001 22:58:34 UTC