Subject: 204 (No Content), 205 (Reset Content) and message-body question...

From: John Schultz <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 29 Mar 2002 20:22:36 -0500

From Section 10.2.6 (205 Reset Content):

"The response MUST NOT include an entity."

Wouldn't a better specification read

"The response MUST NOT include an entity and MUST NOT include a 
message-body and, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line 
after the header fields."

or, even more simply

"The response MUST NOT include a message-body, and thus is always 
terminated by the first empty line after the header fields."

and alter Section 4.4 (Message Length) to read

"1. Any response message which MUST NOT include a message-body (such as 
the 1xx, 204, 205 and 304 responses and any response to a HEAD request) 
is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields, 
regardless of the entity-header fields present in the message."

since this seems to be the current spirit of Section 10.2.6?

Why would 205s need a message-body and not an entity?  The _ONLY_ thing 
I can think of would be trailer headers tacked onto a chunked encoding 
by a dynamic server application. But if that is the case, then why don't 
204s get a message-body too?

I believe the specifications of 204 and 205 should match when it comes 
to having or not having a message-body.

-- 
John Schultz
Co-Founder, Lead Engineer
D-Fusion, Inc. (http://www.d-fusion.net)
Phn: 443-838-2200 Fax: 707-885-1055