RE: deleting slash at the and of an URL

> From:	Irene.Vatton@inrialpes.fr [SMTP:Irene.Vatton@inrialpes.fr]
> 
> But you can also access a document without any suffix and only
> the server knows if the URI points to a document or a directory,
> not the client. I consider that the client doesn't have to add a /.
> 
	Documents and directories are implementation
	details in the server; that there is commonly
	a correlation between a URL and a directory path
	doesn't guarantee that to be so.

	The particular problem with dropping the / is that
	the resulting redirect isn't cacheable, so the 
	request goes end to end even when a local cache has
	the required page.

	Redirects are essential here, otherwise relative
	URLs will break.

	In the case quoted the client has broken because the /
	form was tried first and, reasonably, rejected (some
	serveres would ignore the excess pathinfo) but Amaya
	thought that the non-/ form must be equivalent, so
	has refused to refetch it.

Received on Wednesday, 12 January 2000 09:57:08 UTC