- From: Greg Stein <gstein@lyra.org>
- Date: Sun, 01 Aug 1999 00:47:45 -0700
- To: Douglas Steen <dsteen@connectionpoints.com>
- CC: w3c-dist-auth@w3.org
Hey Dug... Douglas Steen wrote: > > RFC 2518, 13.7 reads (in part): > "Note that the last-modified date on a resource may reflect changes in > any part of the state of the resource, not necessarily just a change to > the response to the GET method." > > I'd like to assume that the last-modified date _will_ reflect changes to > any part of the state (such as a property change). I know that this is > the case for IIS5, but I'm wondering if other servers are changing the > last-modified date when properties are updated, even though it's not > officially required. > > Does anyone know whether this is an unwritten standard, or just a > coincidence for IIS5? Coincidence for IIS5. mod_dav uses the timestamp from the underlying file. Therefore, property changes will not update the last-modified time. It will be difficult for some systems to respond with timestamps for property changes because of the underlying storage system and/or the use of live properties. In the mod_dav case, it would be "expensive" to check for property change times because it would need to consult a separate data store (in addition to the filesystem). Note that live properties can change at a whim of the server; as a result, it could render the last-modified meaningless because it could change almost continually (tracking the live property change). Anyhow: my recommendation would be to not rely on property changes (in any server) to update the last-modified timestamp. Cheers, -g -- Greg Stein, http://www.lyra.org/
Received on Sunday, 1 August 1999 03:49:24 UTC