Re: Question on byte ranges
Dave Kristol (dmk@bell-labs.com)
Tue, 04 Nov 1997 17:13:22 -0500
Jeffrey Mogul wrote:
> [...]
> (3) Also in section 14.36.1 Byte Ranges, before the paragraph that
> starts "Examples of byte-ranges-specifier values ...", insert this
> paragraph:
>
> If a syntactically valid byte-range-set includes at least one
> byte-range-spec whose first-byte-pos is less than the current
> length of the entity-body, or at least one
> suffix-byte-range-spec with a non-zero suffix-length, then the
> byte-range-set is satisfiable. Otherwise, the byte-range-set
> is unsatisfiable. If the byte-range-set is unsatisfiable, the
> server SHOULD return a response with a status of 416 (Requested
> range not satisfiable). Otherwise, the server SHOULD return a
> response with a status of 206 (Partial Content) containing the
> satisfiable ranges of the entity-body.
That's much clearer. But I think it's backward. I think 416 should
mean the request (and therefore the client) is buggy. And if none of
the ranges are satisfiable, return everything (pretend there's no Range
header). I think it's a little strange to return an error if the Range
header was well-formed and ignore Range if it's ill-formed.
Dave Kristol