IPP Mail Archive: IPP> Re: On the harm of adding new methods

IPP> Re: On the harm of adding new methods

Koen Holtman (koen@win.tue.nl)
Thu, 11 Jun 1998 20:19:11 +0200 (MET DST)

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Roy T. Fielding:
>
[Larry Masinter:]
>>Forwarders MUST actually understand methods, because -- unfortunately --
>>the meaning of HTTP headers and responses differ based on the method
>>of the request (e.g., Content-Length for HEAD vs GET). Many forwarding
>>systems will not accept new methods gracefully.
>
>Actually, that is only true for HEAD and GET -- all header fields have
>the same meaning for all other methods.
[...]
> I can't think of any other
>exceptions at the moment -- if any have been added in the past year
>or so, they need to be removed.

I just checked the latest revision of the spec and no other exceptions
have been added.

Also, reviewing the material in sections 4.3 and 4.4, I conclude that
it is possible to make an HTTP/1.1 forwarder which will correctly
forward any 1.1 message even if it has an unknown new method. This is
of course as it should be: the spec would be broken otherwise.

Koen.

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