Expires non-compliance

Jared Rhine (Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu)
Wed, 10 May 1995 03:06:01 +0500


[Citation date: Tue, 09 May 1995 10:30:57 +0200]
RK == Rainer Klute <klute@nads.de>

JRhine> Unfortunately, my tests indicate that Netscape doesn't handle the
JRhine> Expires header properly :(

RK> Not to defend Netscape against anything, but is there a client at all
RK> that handles Expires properly? Not even the CERN proxy does.

I believe Emacs-w3 does, but I'd have to run some more exhaustive tests,
since when I found out Netscape's behavior, I had to resort to other means
besides Expires. I would note that section 7.1.8 of
draft-ietf-http-v10-spec-00 states:

Caching clients (including proxies) must not cache this copy of the
resource beyond the date given, unless its status has been updated by a
later check of the origin server.

The key word is "must"; caching clients that do not handle the Expires
header are non-compliant HTTP applications (well, granted that the standard
is only a draft, but it's all we've got).

-- 
Jared_Rhine@hmc.edu / HMC / <URL:http://www.hmc.edu/~jared/home>

"One cannot mark the point without marking the path."