The power of HTTP headers and examples

lorenzweiss.de

57 points·loweisz··5 comments

MDN's explanation of Vary is much better: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Va.... This article uses the phrase "the server", when it should really be "the cache server". The actual server is the one that actually sends that header. The way this post words it makes it seem like the browser sends the header ("you can simply use the Vary header to tell the server"), which would be pointless.

another HTTP header that I recently came to know about is the "Expect" header. Basically used to send just the request without request body and send the body only after the server responds with HTTP status code 100.

Cool article. Do these headers change with HTTP 1, 2, 3? Or are these headers fixed but only the type of connection changes with different HTTP protocols?

HTTP/1.1 was the last to introduce new headers. HTTP/2 and later specify lower-level details than headers themselves.

I think it's more clear to say that headers are usually specified separate from the protocols these days, so there are new headers introduced after HTTP/1.1, but they are not usually introduced in the core HTTP spec but rather in separate RFCs that usually apply to HTTP/1.1, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3.

The only new header in the HTTP/2 RFC is specifically for HTTP/2 upgrades from HTTP/1.1: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7540#section-3.2.1

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