I was unaware of the fact that %O logs something reasonable for partial requests. However, the purpose of this bug was not to argue for one or the other, only that the documentation should match what is implemented.
In my case I spent a long time trying to understand why, when downloading x bytes from apache, the logs did not show x. I RTFM but the manual was wrong in this case. The Debian documentation said the common log file format was one way but the implementation was different. In my case a spent about 2 hours digging around, testing and trying to understand what was happening before I decided to look closer at how the common log file format was defined in the configuration to find that it was different to the documentation. ----- Original Message ----- From: Stefan Fritsch [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, June 29, 2012 12:33 PM To: Ryan Jones (UK) Cc: [email protected] <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Bug#679522: apache2.2-common: Apache Common and Combined definition Vs. documentation disparity On Friday 29 June 2012, Ryan Jones wrote: > The difference between them being that where in the vanilla version > we have ‘%b’ whilst in the apache2.2-common version we have ’%O’. > Whilst the data they return is similar they are not the same. %O has the advantage that it logs something reasonable for partial requests, while %b always logs the size of the file, even if only a part has been requested. Why is the difference a problem? I guess that log analyzing software may expect %b, but what exactly is the resulting problem? After all, %O is just more exact than %b. This transmission may contain information that is privileged, confidential, and/or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any disclosure, copying, distribution, or use of the information contained herein (including any reliance thereon) is STRICTLY PROHIBITED. If you received this transmission in error, please immediately contact the sender and destroy the material in its entirety, whether in electronic or hard copy format.
