The HEAD method is identical to GET except that the
server MUST NOT send a message body in the response (i.e., the
response terminates at the end of the header section). The server
SHOULD send the same header fields in response to a HEAD request as it
would have sent if the request had been a GET, except that the payload
header fields MAY be omitted.
Unfortunately, HEAD is a trap. When you are trying to debug strange
server behavior, it is much safer to send GET requests and throw away
the body (ex, ex). Not only is "SHOULD" just a recommendation, but even if
this were a "MUST" you could bet some servers would mishandle
it. Counterfactuals are hard!
While differences are rare, always debugging by requesting the body
like a normal client would, and then discarding it, means one fewer
way that your debug request differs from a real one:
$ curl -sS -D- -o/dev/null http://www.example.com
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Age: 326124
Cache-Control: max-age=604800
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2020 02:47:41 GMT
Etag: "3147526947"
Expires: Tue, 24 Nov 2020 02:47:41 GMT
Last-Modified: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 07:18:26 GMT
Server: ECS (dcb/7EC9)
Vary: Accept-Encoding
X-Cache: HIT
Content-Length: 1256
Going farther in the same direction, it's even better to start with
"Copy as cURL":
And then add the -sS -D- -o/dev/null to get the headers if
that's all you want.
HTTP offers a convenient way to download only the headers: send a HEAD request:
Of course you wouldn't usually manually type intotelnet
, you'd use something likecurl
: It's defined in RFC 7231:Unfortunately, HEAD is a trap. When you are trying to debug strange server behavior, it is much safer to send GET requests and throw away the body (ex, ex). Not only is "SHOULD" just a recommendation, but even if this were a "MUST" you could bet some servers would mishandle it. Counterfactuals are hard!
While differences are rare, always debugging by requesting the body like a normal client would, and then discarding it, means one fewer way that your debug request differs from a real one:
Going farther in the same direction, it's even better to start with "Copy as cURL":
And then add the
-sS -D- -o/dev/null
to get the headers if that's all you want.Comment via: facebook