RE: NEW ISSUE: Methods and Caching

> On fre, 2008-11-14 at 19:11 -0800, Mark Nottingham wrote:
> > RFC2616 does not clearly define what the relationship of the request
> > method is to caching. In particular, does the method form part of the
> > cache key?
> 
> As already discussed extensively: no.

Where is the discussion?

> My proposal is to make the URI-only GET/HEAD cache model more explicit,
> so future protocol additions hopefully do not fall into the same trap
> of inventing new GET-type methods like WebDAV did..

RFC 4918 says PROPFIND is cacheable. The only practical way PROPFIND can be
cacheable is if the method is part of the key. Otherwise the cached PROPFIND
responses would be returned by the cache for GET requests, which is clearly
wrong. 

You are proposing that 9(1) only GET and HEAD are cacheable, and in
particular (2) POST and PROPFIND are never cacheable even with Cache-Control
headers in the responses, and (3) that there will never be another cacheable
method in HTTP. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any problems with
that proposal as long as caches aren't caching PROPFIND already.

- Brian

Received on Monday, 17 November 2008 16:01:16 UTC