Message-Id: <m0sHBaa-0003p9C@cass39.ast.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 95 15:51 BST
From: drtr@ast.cam.ac.uk (David Robinson)
To: new-httpd@hyperreal.com
Subject: Re: http status code for directories without trailing '/'
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>I was just explaining to about how urls that refer to directories should 
>always end in a trailing slash, and how the server issues a redirect to 
>make sure things work. I was using apache 0.6 to demonstrate, and I 
>spotted a slight problem in the returned status code. 
>
>Apache returns a 302 (temporary redirect). However, this particular case 
>is always a 301 (permanent redirect). I don't think this actually affects 
>any exiting cache-rs, but on my reading of the spec, it ought to not work 
>(for 302, clients must use the original URI for future requests; 
>generating relative URLs could fall under this heading). 

Yes, this is a bug; apache should return 301.
I've tried chimera, netscape, mosaic and lynx, and none of them treat 301
any differently to 302.

chimera, netscape and mosaic do not cache a redirection, even if it is
a 301 redirect. Reloading the original document (without the trailing '/')
causes them to reissue a GET for that document.

lynx _always_ caches a redirection, even if it is a 302 redirect.

I think we should change the apache behaviour; hopefully some browsers may
follow suit. I have a patch for 0.6.5.

 David.