Re: Mohamed Boucadair's Discuss on draft-ietf-httpbis-safe-method-w-body-13: (with DISCUSS and COMMENT)

Hi Glenn.

Am 17.11.2025 um 10:06 schrieb Glenn Strauss:
> ...
> Related to Mohamed's note, please clarify that QUERY supports
> HTTP Range requests.

They are as optional as in HTTP.
> https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110#name-range
>     [...]
>     A server MUST ignore a Range header field received with a request method that is unrecognized or for which range handling is not defined. For this specification, GET is the only method for which range handling is defined.
>     [...]
> 
> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-httpbis-safe-method-w-body/
> Section 2.8. Range Requests
>     The semantics of Range Requests for QUERY are identical to those for
>     GET, as defined in Section 14 of [HTTP].  Byte Range requests (the
>     only range unit defined at the time of writing), however, offer
>     little value for the results of a QUERY request.
> 
>     Query formats often define their own way for limiting or paging
>     through result sets, such as with "FETCH FIRST ... ROWS ONLY" in SQL.
>     It is expected that these built-in features will be used instead of
>     HTTP Range Requests.
> 
> If HTTP Range Request handling as defined in RFC9110 should not be used
> with QUERY, then please be clear that HTTP Range Request 'Range' header
> from RFC9110 is not defined for QUERY.  If HTTP Range Request handling

There is no reason for "SHOULD NOT" here. We say that byte-range 
requests are of little value though.

> could be used with QUERY, then please more explicitly state that HTTP
> Range Request handling is defined for QUERY.

"The semantics of Range Requests for QUERY are identical to those for 
GET, as defined in Section 14 of [HTTP]."

> I could imagine a Range byte-range request as a coarse way for a
> client to limit the size of the potential response data returned for
> an initial request, leaving open the possibility of resubmitting the
> same request for future retrieval of additional byte-ranges.

Yes.

> At the same time, I wonder if HTTP Range Requests should not be defined
> for QUERY.  My server currently evaluates the Range request header only
> for request method GET.
They are in fact defined.

Do you want to suggest concrete text changes here?

Best regards, Julian

Received on Monday, 17 November 2025 10:11:22 UTC