Re: Entities

On Wed, 14 Aug 2002, Kim Horne wrote:

> I've come across what may or may not be an issue in RFC2616.  In
> section 4.3 (Message Body) there is a line that reads:
>
> "A message-body MUST NOT be included in a request if the
> specification of the request method (section 5.1.1) does not allow
> sending an entity-body in requests."
>
> However, there is no reference to such restrictions in 5.1.1.  It
> seems logical that it could be referring to GET and HEAD requests,
> but I can't find an answer anywhere else in the document.

Section 5.1.1 is essentially a table-of-contents for request method
specifications. For example, "GET" is described in Section 9.3. Thus,
I think the RFC wording is acceptable.

> Are GET/HEAD requests allowed to have entities or should section
> 5.1.1 (or possibly 9.3/9.4 ?) have errata on this issue?  Is there
> something in the RFC on this issue that I'm missing?  Any help would
> be greatly appreciated...

As far as I can see, RFC 2616 does not prohibit use of entity bodies
in GET or HEAD. Thus, according to the section 4.3, there might be a
body transmitted with those requests:

   The presence of a message-body in a request is signaled by the
   inclusion of a Content-Length or Transfer-Encoding header field in
   the request's message-headers. A message-body MUST NOT be included in
   a request if the specification of the request method (section 5.1.1)
   does not allow sending an entity-body in requests.

How many servers/proxies would be confused by GET bodies is a
different question.

HTH,

Alex.

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Received on Wednesday, 14 August 2002 13:10:43 UTC