Juliusz Chroboczek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> AB> The only solutions that I can think of are not to send the length
> AB> in the header, but that would not then be HTTP/1.1 compliant.
>
> I believe it would still be conditionally compliant. RFC 2616 14.3
> only has a SHOULD, and the MUST in 4.4 only applies to requests, not
> to replies. Am I missing something?
I think that you are correct here. The only complication is that for
persistent connections (whether pipelined or not) there must be some
way of distinguishing between the different responses. This can
either be a Content-Length or by using chunked Transfer-Encoding.
> This doesn't change the fact that it is indeed tricky to perform
> modifications ``on the fly''.
To explain why there are no Content-Length headers with the latest
version of WWWOFFLE I have added the following entry to the FAQ:
-------------------- FAQ --------------------
Q 3.11 Why don't I see the progress of page downloads through WWWOFFLE?
In version 2.8 of WWWOFFLE there is a change to the handling of the headers that
are sent from WWWOFFLE to the client (browser). The Content-Length header is
removed in all cases so that it is not possible for the client (browser) to work
out the fraction of the file that has been downloaded.
This change has been made for many reasons, but they all come down to three
things. The removal of temporary files for storing a page between receiving it
and sending it to the client, this speeds up page viewing. The use of
compression or chunked transfer encoding on the links from WWWOFFLE to server or
client. The dynamic generation or modification of web pages by WWWOFFLE.
The following list contains the times that it is not possible to insert a
Content-Length header without using a temporary file:
* When you are online and the server sent compressed data (WWWOFFLE will
uncompress it and pass it to the client).
* When compression is used for the WWWOFFLE to client links.
* When you are online and the server sent data using chunked encoding (this
requires that there is no Content-Length header).
* When chunked encoding is used for the WWWOFFLE to client links.
* When the page is being sent from the cache and is stored compressed.
* When the web page is modified by the HTML modification options.
* When the web page is being internally generated by WWWOFFLE.
To maintain consistency and simplicity of the WWWOFFLE code the Content-Length
header is removed in all cases.
-------------------- FAQ --------------------
--
Andrew.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew M. Bishop [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/
WWWOFFLE users page:
http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/wwwoffle/version-2.8/user.html
