On 13.08.2006, at 20:03, Michael Lex wrote:
This chunked-transfer-encoding thing is only a workaround until the Content-Length bug is fixed.
I've been reading various posts from you, Bernd, Vlad and Stephen about that... I must say: the problem is that the *correct* content-length header is/would-be difficult (or costly in terms of memory and time) to compute for dynamic content. The way how the things are handled now, the caller passes the equivalent to [string length] bytes and an encoding to the underlying routine(s). They encode the content *on-the-fly* so the caller cannot possibly know in advance what to put in the Content-Length header as the *real* output length may/will change depending on the selected encoding. After all, the chunked encoding IS defined exactly for this reason: to allow the recepient to verify the number of bytes received, when it is impossible or not feasible for the generator to specify exact number of bytes sent. If you looking it from that perspective, the "workaround" Bernd has made is actually pretty much OK. I wonder how you can set a correct Content-Length if you use ADP streaming... The above case (using explicit output encoding) is (admitently) not exactly the same as streaming, as you COULD encode the string before sending and then set the correct content-length, but this would mean memory bloat as you will have to transform the entire content beforehand... Therefore, if you ask me, the "workaround" should be left there. Another thing... I guess if we do not return the Content-Length at all, and we do not use chunked transfer encoding, the browser will slurp everything until EOF, right? But this can only be done for non-keepalive connections... Hm... Wrong turn.... If you ask me, I think we must make sure our test routines also know how to decode chunked encodings and we should leave the "workaround" in place. If we all agree that this is the way to go we can check other places in the code and make sure they do the same: if output encoding set, turn-on the chunked transfer encoding. What do others think? Cheers Zoran
