From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 08:59:55 GMT
Subject: Re: kernel.org mirroring (Re: [GIT PULL] MMC update)
Message-ID: <200612110959.56492.jnareb@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <46a038f90612101816j33870bb1j39182358440aaa40@mail.gmail.com>

Martin Langhoff wrote:
> On 12/11/06, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Even if Apache does execute CGI script to completion every time, it might
>> not send the output of the script, but HTTP 304 Not Modified reply. Might.
>> I don't know if it does.
> 
> It is up to the script (CGI or via mod_perl) to set the status to 304
> and finish execution. Just setting the status to 304 does not
> forcefully end execution as you may want to cleanup, log, etc.

I was thinking not about ending execution, but about not sending script
output but sending HTTP 304 Not Modified reply by Apache.

I meant the following sequence of events:
 1. Script sends headers, among those Last-Modified and/or ETag
 2. Apache scans headers (e.g. to add its own), notices that Last-Modified
    is earlier or equal to If-Modified-Since: sent by browser or reverse
    proxy, or ETag matches If-None-Match:, and sends 304 instead of script
    output
 3. Script finishes execution, it's output sent to /dev/null

Again, I don't know if Apache (or any other web server) does that. 
-- 
Jakub Narebski