Re: Using a 404 ErrorDocument to serve content

2002-05-06 Thread Randal L. Schwartz

> "Ken" == Ken Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

Ken> I was thinking of writing yet-another-photo-album-server, and I had
Ken> the idea that I'd write a handler to serve resized versions of JPEGs
Ken> (very original, I know ;-).  The idea is that I'd put a bunch of JPEGs
Ken> on the server at locations like foo/123.jpg , and then if a request
Ken> came for foo/123-medium.jpg , I'd catch that with a 404 ErrorDocument
Ken> and generate the resized image using Imager.  If I wanted to, I could
Ken> also create the resized image on disk, so it wouldn't need to be
Ken> generated next time.

As usual, Been there, Did That For A Column.

1) Visit any page on the newly redesigned www.stonehenge.com.
2) Type "404 handler" into the bottom "search this site with google" box.
3) Check out the hits... should be the first or second one.

After 160 columns, I'm starting to really wonder what there is LEFT to
cover. :)
-- 
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Perl/Unix/security consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See PerlTraining.Stonehenge.com for onsite and open-enrollment Perl training!



Re: Using a 404 ErrorDocument to serve content

2002-05-06 Thread Perrin Harkins

Ken Williams wrote:
> The idea is that I'd put a bunch of JPEGs on the 
> server at locations like foo/123.jpg , and then if a request came for 
> foo/123-medium.jpg , I'd catch that with a 404 ErrorDocument and 
> generate the resized image using Imager.  If I wanted to, I could also 
> create the resized image on disk, so it wouldn't need to be generated 
> next time.

Incidentally, that's how Vignette StoryServer works.  You could also do 
this kind of thing with a transhandler (or mod_rewrite) that checks for 
the existence of a static file and rewrites the URL if it can't find 
one.  That might be more "correct", but trapping 404 is the best 
possible performance, since there is no additional code in the response 
chain if the static file is there.

- Perrin




Re: Using a 404 ErrorDocument to serve content

2002-05-06 Thread Matthew Lanier

On Mon, 6 May 2002, Perrin Harkins wrote:

> Ken Williams wrote:
> > The idea is that I'd put a bunch of JPEGs on the 
> > server at locations like foo/123.jpg , and then if a request came for 
> > foo/123-medium.jpg , I'd catch that with a 404 ErrorDocument and 
> > generate the resized image using Imager.  If I wanted to, I could also 
> > create the resized image on disk, so it wouldn't need to be generated 
> > next time.
> 
> Incidentally, that's how Vignette StoryServer works.  You could also do 
> this kind of thing with a transhandler (or mod_rewrite) that checks for 
> the existence of a static file and rewrites the URL if it can't find 
> one.  That might be more "correct", but trapping 404 is the best 
> possible performance, since there is no additional code in the response 
> chain if the static file is there.
> 

fyi, i believe that Vignette is attempting to patent that.

> - Perrin
> 

m@ =)

matthew d. p. k. strelchun-lanier
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
415-515-5421
http://www.lanier.org
http://sf.pm.org





Re: Using a 404 ErrorDocument to serve content

2002-05-06 Thread Joachim Zobel

At 10:59 06.05.2002 -0700, you wrote:
>On Mon, 6 May 2002, Perrin Harkins wrote:
> > Incidentally, that's how Vignette StoryServer works.  You could also do
> > this kind of thing with a transhandler (or mod_rewrite) that checks for
> > the existence of a static file and rewrites the URL if it can't find
> > one.  That might be more "correct", but trapping 404 is the best
> > possible performance, since there is no additional code in the response
> > chain if the static file is there.
> >
>
>fyi, i believe that Vignette is attempting to patent that.

Phew, and I just thought that I did not like the design. It might have good 
performance now, but the idea sounds valid that in an error handler 
performance does not matter. So if someone changes apache in that direction ...

How can they patent it if there already is an article about this?

Sincerely,
Joachim

--
"... ein Geschlecht erfinderischer Zwerge, die fuer alles gemietet werden
koennen."- Bertolt Brecht - Leben des Galilei