Idempotence: the ability of a Document to be transmitted and accepted more than once with the same effect as being transmitted and accepted once. This somehow does not mean no side-effects (web applications, GET)! Only idempotent requests can be pipelined, such as GET and HEAD requests with maximum scucess. POST and PUT are dodgy business!! Ahmed Bagi Manchester
----- Original Message ----- From: "Ian Clelland" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: "S. Mike Dierken" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, May 28, 2004 7:34 PM Subject: Re: HTTP 1.1 pipelining > > S. Mike Dierken wrote: > > > I'm looking into request pipelining & had a question about the kind of > > requests allowed. > > The RFC says only idempotent requests should be pipelined. > > This FAQ > > (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/http/pipelining-faq.html) from > > Mozilla says PUT should not be used because it isn't idempotent. > > Except that it is. PUT is idempotent (repeatable with deterministic > > results). > > > > <>Which is it? > > I'm pretty sure that the Mozilla FAQ is wrong in this case. Perhaps the > author is confusing being idempotent with having no side-effects. You're > right that the semantics of PUT do make it acceptable for pipelining. > > Of course, given the number of web applications out there these days > which break idempotence even for GET requests, I'd be worried about > assuming that property for anything on the web. > > > Ian Clelland > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >
