- From: Lisa Dusseault <lisa.dusseault@gmail.com>
- Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:21:26 -0700
- To: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>
- Cc: Mark Nottingham <mnot@mnot.net>, HTTP Working Group <ietf-http-wg@w3.org>
On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 4:33 AM, Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de> wrote: > Recommending the use of timestamps instead a potentially available weak etag > simple does not make sense. After all, the server is minting the etags, and > it also controls what it accepts in conditional PATCH requests. Let it > decide what's right. > It looks to me like RFC2616 forbids this even if the server could figure out what's right. Section 14.26 says "The weak comparison function can only be used with GET or HEAD requests." So in a PATCH, we'd have to use strong comparison. Section 13.3.3 defines strong comparison: "in order to be considered equal, both validators MUST be identical in every way, and both MUST NOT be weak." Thus, a weak ETag could never successfully be used in a PATCH operation, because weak comparison is forbidden and strong comparison must fail. We could include an explanation of how this is forbidden in the PATCH draft, if you think that would help. Lisa
Received on Monday, 19 October 2009 18:22:01 UTC