Re: force POST requests to be cached?

Perrin Harkins wrote:

> I'm using it under special circumstances. All of my POST requests
> are cacheable. But, if squid doesn't implement this I will look
> elsewhere or try to build it myself. Thanks for the information
> and keep up the good work.

If you gave a good example on when POST replies may be cacheable, and
how to handle cache hits then some of us might get motivation to
implement it in Squid.

Problems/Questions:
a) A POST request contains a request body which needs to be disposed of
somehow.
b) What kind of POST request results in a cacheable reply except pure
errors? I.e. when is this actually useful?

Caching POST replies that is not errors seems like a big waste. Whatever
you do the client sends you a request body anyway, and if this request
body is not interesting why have the client send you a POST request in
the first place?

The recommended method to have cacheable replies is to have the POST
handler return a 303 (See other) reply that redirects the user agent to
a cacheable page. This way every POST request is sent to the server, but
the "reply" may be cached in any allowed caches on the way from the
origin server to the end user.

---
Henrik Nordström
Spare time Squid hacker