Mailing List Archive: Re: WWW Form Bug Report: "On HEAD Requests, Server does not return Content-Length" on OTHER:ANY, I guess

Re: WWW Form Bug Report: "On HEAD Requests, Server does not return Content-Length" on OTHER:ANY, I guess

Oct 8, 1995, 1:02 PM

Post #1 of 3 (288 views)

>
> Submitter: stamer@merlin.physik.uni-oldenburg.de
> Operating system: OTHER:ANY, I guess, version:
> Extra Modules used:
> URL exhibiting problem: http://xxx.lanl.gov. http://www.apache.org
>
> Symptoms:
> --
> Normally on HEAD Requests, the server returns Content-Length of the document specified. (as in then HTTP 1.0 specs). try telnet www.ncsa.uiuc.edu 80 HEAD / HTTP/1.0 and telnet www.apache.org 80 HEAD / HTTP/1.0 Some programs rely on this and want to know the document length before getting it. I just tested it again and tried telnet www.apache.org 80 GET / HTTP/1.0 It seems that Apache does NOT return any Content-Length at all !!! Heinrich

hi,

My first thought is,
how can a response with no content have a content length >0 ?

This mail will go to the developers, who can ponder that thought.

regards,
rob

Re: WWW Form Bug Report: "On HEAD Requests, Server does not return Content-Length" on OTHER:ANY, I guess [ In reply to ]

brian at organic

Oct 8, 1995, 2:31 PM

Post #2 of 3 (287 views)

Permalink

On Sun, 8 Oct 1995, Rob Hartill wrote:
> > Submitter: stamer@merlin.physik.uni-oldenburg.de
> > Operating system: OTHER:ANY, I guess, version:
> > Extra Modules used:
> > URL exhibiting problem: http://xxx.lanl.gov. http://www.apache.org
> >
> > Symptoms:
> > --
> > Normally on HEAD Requests, the server returns Content-Length of the document specified. (as in then HTTP 1.0 specs). try telnet www.ncsa.uiuc.edu 80 HEAD / HTTP/1.0 and telnet www.apache.org 80 HEAD / HTTP/1.0 Some programs rely on this and want to know the document length before getting it. I just tested it again and tried telnet www.apache.org 80 GET / HTTP/1.0 It seems that Apache does NOT return any Content-Length at all !!! Heinrich
>
>
> hi,
>
> My first thought is,
> how can a response with no content have a content length >0 ?
>
> This mail will go to the developers, who can ponder that thought.

According to
<URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/draft-ietf-http-v10-spec-03.html#HEAD>

| The HEAD method is identical to GET except that the server must not
| return any Entity-Body in the response. The metainformation contained in
| the HTTP headers in response to a HEAD request should be identical to the
| information sent in response to a GET request. This method can be used for
| obtaining metainformation about the resource identified by the Request-URI
| without transferring the Entity-Body itself. This method is often used for
| testing hypertext links for validity, accessibility, and
| recent modification.

Looks like it should!

Also, if a HEAD is performed on a CGI script, should the server run the
script and only send the headers? What if it is an nph script, is Apache
considered nonconformant then?

Brian

--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--
brian@organic.com brian@hyperreal.com http://www.[hyperreal,organic].com/

Re: WWW Form Bug Report: "On HEAD Requests, Server does not return Content-Length" on OTHER:ANY, I guess [ In reply to ]

hartill at ooo

Oct 8, 1995, 9:18 PM

Post #3 of 3 (289 views)

Permalink

> Looks like it should!
>
> Also, if a HEAD is performed on a CGI script, should the server run the
> script and only send the headers? What if it is an nph script, is Apache
> considered nonconformant then?
>
> Brian

It's a false alarm. HEAD does behave according to the spec, it's just that
the example the guy tried was for a document that didn't produce a
content-length header - one with includes I suspect.

I've explain that to him now.

rob