Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
13.5.3 Combining Headers

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13.5.3 Combining Headers

13.5.3 Combining Headers

When a cache makes a validating request to a server, and the server provides a 304 (Not Modified) response, the cache must construct a response to send to the requesting client. The cache uses the entity-body stored in the cache entry as the entity-body of this outgoing response. The end-to-end headers stored in the cache entry are used for the constructed response, except that any end-to-end headers provided in the 304 response MUST replace the corresponding headers from the cache entry. Unless the cache decides to remove the cache entry, it MUST also replace the end-to-end headers stored with the cache entry with corresponding headers received in the incoming response.

In other words, the set of end-to-end headers received in the incoming response overrides all corresponding end-to-end headers stored with the cache entry. The cache may add Warning headers (see section 14.45) to this set.

If a header field-name in the incoming response matches more than one header in the cache entry, all such old headers are replaced.


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Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
13.5.3 Combining Headers