lynx-dev refer(r)er headers (was wire.ap.org)

[Philip Webb]

981119 Klaus Weide wrote: 
> On Thu, 19 Nov 1998, Philip Webb wrote:
>> note to lynx-dev generally: entering the former URL got me the JS page,
>> but when i entered  \  then  \  again to recover the rendered page,
>> i got a page consisting of 2 frame URLs, incl the latter above,
>> whence i was able to goto some real information.
>> i've never before encountered a situation
>> in which 2  \'s  take me to a different rendered page.
> When you first goto the page, Lynx doesn't send a Referer: header.
> After that, when you do '\' (SOURCE), then it does.
> The server is sending a different page depending on that.
> In other words, it does negotiation on the Referer header.
> It is at least questionable whether lynx should send a Referer header
> in this situation at all.  Apparently it doesn't when RELOAD is used.
> The behavior may have changed from previous versions,
> or the configuration file settings may be different.
> This is from RFC 2068:
>    The Referer[sic] request-header field allows the client to specify,
>    for the server's benefit, the address (URI) of the resource from
>    which the Request-URI was obtained (the "referrer", although the
>    header field is misspelled.) The Referer request-header allows a
>    server to generate lists of back-links to resources for interest,
>    logging, optimized caching, etc. It also allows obsolete or mistyped
>    links to be traced for maintenance. The Referer field MUST NOT be
>    sent if the Request-URI was obtained from a source that does not have
>    its own URI, such as input from the user keyboard.
 
if i understand you & RFC 2068 correctly, Lynx shouldn't be sending
a Refer(r)er header when the request is generated by  \ ,
since there is no source with a URI in that case.

it really is good to have you back (big grin):
did you spend the  347 days  having your brain cells individually sharpened?
just try not to intimidate us all too much ...

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