100 Continue clarification

[Olivier Boel EXT <[e-mail]>]

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Hello,


I have some doubts regarding how client should act in case server replies to "Expect: 100 Continue" with a final status (> 199).
RFC says: A server that responds with a final status code before reading the entire message body SHOULD indicate in that response whether it intends to close the connection or continue reading and discarding the request message.
I would translate "whether it intends to close the connection" into "Connection: close" and "continue reading and discarding the request message" into "Connection: keep-alive".
In this latter case, IMHO, as the server already sent a final status (meaning "the request-line and header fields are sufficient to cause an immediate success, redirect, or error response"), client should understand it is not worthwhile to send the message body before actually doing so (which can improve efficiency when the message body is huge or when the client anticipates that an error is likely) even though server says "Connection: keep-alive", but rather send the next request.
Otherwise, the only way for the server to prevent the client sending the message body is to close the connection, which is rather drastic and not so in line with HTTP/1.1.
Can anyone clarify this?

Thanks,


Olivier B.
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