Re: Content-length header

Joerg Sommer <[email protected]> writes:

> what's the state of the content-length header? Do you plan to activate it
> in the next release? Do you have a patch to do this? I don't configure
> wwwoffle to changes the sites it ships, so there is no reason to not
> provide the content-length header.

I will not be including any code to insert the Content-Length header
and I do not have a patch that would add it.

It was a major relief to be able to remove the code in the first
place, it has been the cause of several bugs over the years.  New
features in WWWOFFLE (chunked encoding, compressed pages, removal of
temporary files) means that it was getting less and less possible to
even have the header.

I know that there are some special cases when a header would work, but
recognising all of them makes the code complicated.  I have to live
with this code, edit it and maintain it; not having the Content-Length
makes my life easier and lets me add other features.


-------------------- FAQ --------------------
The following list contains the times that it is not possible to insert a
Content-Length header without using a temporary file:

* When you are online and the server sent compressed data (WWWOFFLE will
  uncompress it and pass it to the client).
* When compression is used for the WWWOFFLE to client links.
* When you are online and the server sent data using chunked encoding (this
  requires that there is no Content-Length header).
* When chunked encoding is used for the WWWOFFLE to client links.
* When the page is being sent from the cache and is stored compressed.
* When the web page is modified by the HTML modification options.
* When the web page is being internally generated by WWWOFFLE.

To maintain consistency and simplicity of the WWWOFFLE code the Content-Length
header is removed in all cases.
-------------------- FAQ --------------------

-- 
Andrew.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew M. Bishop                             amb-Uxr6IM1mbv2TY6FTCsQk+9Bc4/[email protected]
                                      http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/

WWWOFFLE users page:
        http://www.gedanken.demon.co.uk/wwwoffle/version-2.8/user.html