Joerg Sommer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> >> Boinc a tool for searching small green man in outerspace ([EMAIL 
> >> PROTECTED])
> >> sends its data with POSTs to the server. While I'm offline it fills me
> >> the outgoing cache with POST requests. And a request gets everytime a
> >> differnt POST id, which undermine the concept of wwwoffles offline
> >> request/online fetching.
> >> 
> >> How can disable caching of POST requests while offline?
> >
> > You cannot disable the POST itself, but you could set the URL that the
> > POST is sent to as 'dont-request = yes' in the OfflineOptions section.
> 
> Why does confirm-requests not work?

The confirm-requests option should work just as well as dont-request.
Are you saying that there is a problem with confirm-requests?

> >> And does it make
> >> sense to save POSTs, when they ever get different ids and I can never
> >> access them offline?
> >
> > They are very useful because they let you fill in a form on a web page
> > when you are offline and post the results back.  When you go online
> > again you will be able to find the result in the index (e.g. lasttime
> > index).
> 
> But why is the id everytime different? If the id is a hash about the post
> data I get the same result with the same data. This way seti can work
> offline.

There is a fundamental difference between a GET request and a POST
request that should be taken into account.  Even though it is possible
to create an HTML form that uses either type there is a difference.

-------------------- RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 spec --------------------
9.1 Safe and Idempotent Methods

9.1.1 Safe Methods

   Implementors should be aware that the software represents the user in
   their interactions over the Internet, and should be careful to allow
   the user to be aware of any actions they might take which may have an
   unexpected significance to themselves or others.

   In particular, the convention has been established that the GET and
   HEAD methods SHOULD NOT have the significance of taking an action
   other than retrieval. These methods ought to be considered "safe".
   This allows user agents to represent other methods, such as POST, PUT
   and DELETE, in a special way, so that the user is made aware of the
   fact that a possibly unsafe action is being requested.

...


9.3 GET

   The GET method means retrieve whatever information (in the form of an
   entity) is identified by the Request-URI. If the Request-URI refers
   to a data-producing process, it is the produced data which shall be
   returned as the entity in the response and not the source text of the
   process, unless that text happens to be the output of the process.

...


9.5 POST

   The POST method is used to request that the origin server accept the
   entity enclosed in the request as a new subordinate of the resource
   identified by the Request-URI in the Request-Line.
-------------------- RFC 2616 - HTTP/1.1 spec --------------------

So to give an example of what it means to be "taking an action other
than retrieval" consider that there was a web shop.

The URL http://shop.foo/view-product?id=1234 would be the one that
showed you the information about the product (using GET).  The URL
http://shop.foo/buy-product using the POST method with the body
contents of 'id=1234' would actually buy one of these products.

What WWWOFFLE does is make sure that each time you send a POST request
it gets to the shop and caches the confirmation page.  If you sent
another POST request to the same URL with the same information then
you would expect to buy another item.  It is not valid for WWWOFFLE to
send you back the cached data because that is totally different from
buying another item.

If you ask for the GET URL more than once it is OK to send you back
the cached product information because that is just the retrieval of
information that exists whether you request it or not.

-- 
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

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