Re: netclient ignores #set_redirect_mode method -- a test case

Am Donnerstag, den 30.06.2005, 14:02 +0100 schrieb Richard Jones:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2005 at 01:59:28PM +0100, rich wrote:
> > let url = "http://www.merjis.com" (* redirects to http://merjis.com/ *)
> 
> Try also replacing that with:
> 
>   let url = "http://www.slashdot.org"
> 
> The program still fails (as in, it redirects when it shouldn't), but
> doesn't go into an eternal loop.  I'm not sure why this is, since the
> request and response headers look substantially the same in both
> cases.
> 
> The redirect on http://www.merjis.com/ is being done using
> mod_rewrite, so there wouldn't seem to be anything unusual or
> non-standard about it.

Very funny examples. However, I think the root of the loop problem is on
the server's side. Maybe netclient should become more intelligent to
cope with such problems.

So, what is going on:

- http://www.merjis.com: Netclient requests with
  GET / HTTP/1.1
  Host: www.merjis.com:80

  and is then pointed to http://merjis.com (note that http://merjis.com 
  and http://merjis.com/ have the same representation in HTTP):

  GET / HTTP/1.1
  Host: merjis.com:80

  and is then pointed to the same URL again. Of course, this is nonsense,
  but it is clearly the server's fault. Interestingly, the ":80" suffix
  confuses the server - if you omit it, the server does not respond with
  a redirection.

- http://www.slashdot.org: This URL works, there is one redirection to
  http://slashdot.org. Here, the ":80" suffix does not confuse the server.

You are right that netclient ignores #set_redirect_mode. This is a
problem of improper initialisation order (method prepare, which is
called just before sending the request, overwrites the current redirect
mode).

I think the following two changes should be made to improve the
robustness:

- Do not add ":80" to the "host" header. Other HTTP clients do not do
  this (although legal), and servers may get confused.

- Limit the maximum number of redirections.

I can do these changes soon.

Gerd
-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gerd Stolpmann * Viktoriastr. 45 * 64293 Darmstadt * Germany 
[email protected]          http://www.gerd-stolpmann.de
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