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Last-Modified vs Etag for metadata modification checking


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  • From: Chad La Joie <>
  • To:
  • Subject: Last-Modified vs Etag for metadata modification checking
  • Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008 09:31:38 +0100
  • Openpgp: id=146B2514
  • Organization: SWITCH
The Java metadata provider currently does an HTTP HEAD request to
determine if its cached copy of metadata fresh. While investigating
using conditional GETs I came across a lot of references to using the
Etag instead of the last modified time. I am by no means an HTTP expert
but my understanding was that Etags were useful when you did have a last
modified time, for example, when you generated content but the data
source couldn't tell you when that content has last changed.

So, my general question is, should I be checking the Etag or the
Last-Modified header in order to detect changes?

--
SWITCH
Serving Swiss Universities
--------------------------
Chad La Joie, Software Engineer, Net Services
Werdstrasse 2, P.O. Box, 8021 Zürich, Switzerland
phone +41 44 268 15 75, fax +41 44 268 15 68
,
http://www.switch.ch


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