Re: p2: Content-Length in HEAD responses

[Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]>]

On 20/04/2013, at 7:22 PM, Willy Tarreau <[e-mail]> wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 07:11:57PM +1000, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>> 
>> On 20/04/2013, at 7:06 PM, Willy Tarreau <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 06:41:01PM +1000, Mark Nottingham wrote:
>>>> p2 4.3.2 says:
>>>> 
>>>>   Aside from the payload header fields (Section 3.3), the server SHOULD
>>>>   send the same header fields in response to a HEAD request as it would
>>>>   have sent if the request had been a GET.
>>>> 
>>>> The payload header fields include Content-Length, which in my testing is
>>>> pretty common in HEAD responses. Was this an oversight, or intentional?
>>> 
>>> In my opinion it was intentional, as it's the only way for a client
>>> to know the payload size in advance without retrieving the file.
>> 
>> I was asking if it was intentional that, as currently specified, we say that
>> C-L should be *omitted* from HEAD responses.
> 
> This is not what I'm seeing in p1/3.3.2 :
> 
>   A server MAY send a Content-Length header field in a response to a
>   HEAD request (Section 4.3.2 of [Part2]); a server MUST NOT send
>   Content-Length in such a response unless its field-value equals the
>   decimal number of octets that would have been sent in the payload
>   body of a response if the same request had used the GET method.
> 
> Maybe I'm missing something or there are inconsistencies with other parts ?


I think it's an inconsistency between that and <https://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/wg/httpbis/draft-ietf-httpbis/latest/p2-semantics.html#HEAD>.

Let's call this editorial and have the editors flip it back to design if they disagree.


--
Mark Nottingham   http://www.mnot.net/