Subject: Re: OPTIONS *

From: "Jim Whitehead" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:09:52 -0800

Accidentally caught by the spam filter. I've added
[email-masked] to the accept2 list.

- Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: Alex Rousskov [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Tuesday, November 25, 2003 1:51 PM
To: Scott Lawrence
Cc: Larry Masinter; 'Lisa Dusseault'; 'Webdav WG'; [email-masked]
Subject: [Moderator Action] Re: OPTIONS *

On Tue, 25 Nov 2003, Scott Lawrence wrote:

> >    If the Request-URI is an asterisk ("*"), the OPTIONS request is
> >    intended to apply to the server in general rather than to a
> >    specific resource. Since a server's communication options
> >    typically depend on the resource, the "*" request is only
> >    useful as a "ping" or "no-op" type of method; it does nothing
> >    beyond allowing the client to test the capabilities of the
> >    server. For example, this can be used to test a proxy for
> >    HTTP/1.1 compliance (or lack thereof).
> >
> > So there seems to be some assumption that HTTP/1.1 compliance has
> > something to do with implementing OPTIONS (otherwise how could it
> > be used as a test for HTTP/1.1 compliance?).
>
> Regardless of whether or not you get an error (or even which one you
> get), you still get the servers claimed HTTP version in the response
> line.
>
> I'm not sure what more that paragraph needs to say, or what's unclear
> about it.

What confuses people is probably that the text says "to test for
compliance" rather than saying "to detect HTTP version". Since most
HTTP/1.1 implementations are not HTTP/1.1 compliant but are using
HTTP/1.1 version, the two statements are different.

HTH,

Alex.