[Mailman-Developers] Re: GET vs POST (was Re: subscription confirmations)

Satya satyap@satya.virtualave.net
Thu, 19 Jul 2001 16:35:47 +0530 (IST)


On Jul 18, 2001 at 21:56, Chuq Von Rospach wrote:

>On 7/18/01 9:51 PM, "J C Lawrence" <claw@2wire.com> wrote:
>> http://www.google.com/search?q=beej+site%3Awww.kanga.nu
>
>Wait. Are we allowed to put this in an e-mail? Shouldn't JC have had to put
>it on a web page and post a URL to the page with the link on it?

This got me thinking. I haven't been following this discussion too
closely, but it strikes me that a GET like the above should return the
same thing given the same parameters. This is what "side
effects" should mean.

If it's a confirmation, the second time you try to GET the URL, you'll
(well, should) get an error saying "already confirmed". Thus,
side-effect. State change.

A search URL like the one above doesn't cause any state change (except
maybe counter/stats), so should be okay.

Not easy (or maybe even possible) to distinguish those by a program,
though.

-- 
Satya. <URL:http://satya.virtualave.net/>
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