Re: PROPOSAL: Weak Validator definition [i101]

Brian Smith wrote:
> "entity value" is an undefined term that is only used in this one place, and
> it could be interpreted as "entity body" inappropriately. "Entity" would be
> better since it is defined as the combination as the entity-header fields
> and the entity-body.

Right. That's old text though. Will open a new ticket.

> I would expect that a validator should change whenever the entity changes,
> *and* whenever the entity *headers* change as well. For example, changing

I think the entity headers are considered part of the entity. Are there 
specific places that suggest otehrwise.

> the Content-Type from text/plain to text/html is a significant change even
> if the entity body stays the same. Otherwise, because of the restrictions on
> 304 responses containing entity headers, the client could repeatedly get 304
> responses and never learn that the content-type changed. Similarly,
> conditional PUTs would unknowingly revert an intermediate change in entity
> headers.
> 
> For example, an ETag generated as the MD5 of just the entity body would not
> be a good ETag, but an ETag generated as the MD5 of the entity headers
> together with the entity body would be a good ETag.

Correct.

BR, Julian