Proposal: 205 Bodies [#88]

<http://trac.tools.ietf.org/wg/httpbis/trac/ticket/88>
> RFC2616 Section 4.3 "Message Body" enumerates those messages that  
> don't include a message-body;
>
> All 1xx (informational), 204 (no content), and 304 (not modified)  
> responses MUST NOT include a message-body. All other responses do  
> include a message-body, although it MAY be of zero length.
>
> However, it does not list 205 (section 10.2.6).
>
> Also if you look at the texts for 204, 304 and 205 responses, you  
> see that 204 and 304 say "MUST NOT include a message-body", whereas  
> 205 says "MUST NOT include an entity". 204 and 304 go on to say that  
> the message is terminated at the first empty line, but 205 does not  
> say that.
>


Proposal:

  - Add 205 to p1 sections 4.3 and 4.4 (which is where 2616's 4.3  
ended up), and
  - Revise the language in p2 8.2.6 (the definition of 205 Reset  
Content) to use the "MUST NOT include a message-body".

The only argument I can see against this is that someone might include  
entity headers in a 205 response, in the belief that that response  
updates a cache. This could be fixed by adding the phrase "or entity  
headers" to the MUST NOT requirement above. However, I would note that  
204 doesn't have any such language, and this confusion hasn't come up  
before, so I don't think it's really necessary.

I think this is *almost* editorial -- any objection?

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/