Re: New Quixote site, and expire problem

Mike Orr <[email protected]> wrote:
> The problem is that if you view one category (list of entries),
> then go back and view another, on some browsers you see the first
> category again.  Then if you hit Refresh it shows the correct
> category.  It seems to be a problem with browser caching.

Which browsers?  Is there some kind of pattern?

> I looked through the HTTP RFC and http_response.py, and it looks like
> it doesn't cache by default but somehow it is.  self.cache is 0, which
> seems to translate to "Expires: -1", but my browser (Firefox) says
> "Expires: not specified".  I'd like to put "Expires: 0" but it looks
> like I'd have to hack the Publisher to do so.  I figured I'd ask here
> first.

"Expires: -1" should do the right thing.  The official HTTP standard
says:

    HTTP/1.1 clients and caches MUST treat other invalid date
    formats, especially including the value "0", as in the past
    (i.e., "already expired").

So, "0" is preferred but "-1" does the same thing.  I used -1
because of the note on this page:

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q234067/#XSLTH3120121122120121120120

    In many cases, Web servers have one or more volatile pages on a
    server that contain information, which is subject to change
    immediately. These pages should be so marked by the server with
    a value of "-1" for the Expires header

Cheers,

  Neil