- From: Wilfredo Sánchez Vega <wsanchez@wsanchez.net>
- Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2005 15:11:56 -0800
- To: Lisa Dusseault <lisa@osafoundation.org>
- Cc: Julian Reschke <julian.reschke@gmx.de>, WebDAV <w3c-dist-auth@w3.org>
On Nov 29, 2005, at 1:43 PM, Lisa Dusseault wrote: > On Nov 29, 2005, at 1:12 PM, Julian Reschke wrote: >> >> Wilfredo Sánchez Vega wrote: >>> Question for you. >>> Apache HTTPD emits a weak etag for a file resource if the >>> timestamp on the file is the same as the current time (one second >>> accuracy) and a strong etag otherwise. >>> The reason for that logic, as I understand it, is that because >>> the etag generation depends on the timestamp and that the file >>> may change multiple times within a one-second period, an etag >>> generated from a timestamp matching the current time isn't reliable. >> >> Finally a good explanation. > > Do other people consider this behavior to be incorrect according to > the spec? (I'm assuming the explanation is correct and it aligns > with what I've seen). But it seems that within-second changes do > not guarantee "semantic equivalence" as required by HTTP. > > Lisa My best read of the spec leads me to believe that this is not correct as per the spec. A more correct solution may be to append something to the strong ETag if it is in the same timespan as now instead of using a weak ETag in that case. However, this doesn't address the problem of correctly changing the ETag if multiple changes occur within a subsecond timespan. But then, neither does the weak ETag trick. If people agree that Apache HTTPd is incorrect here, I'll be happy to implement, lobby for and commit an appropriate change for future versions. -wsv
Received on Sunday, 4 December 2005 02:19:29 UTC