Re: Question re: META "Expires"

by =?iso-8859-1?B?TGF1cmkgVuRpbg==?= <optima(at)hot.ee>

Date:	Thu, 24 Aug 2000 23:33:12 +0300
To:	"Catenae Web Sites" <catenae(at)catenae.com>, "HWG Techniques" <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
References:	catenae
	todo: View Thread, Original

Triche,

 > Is META "Expires" the best way to do this?

Yes, meta expires is one way to do it.. the date has to be in GMT format
<META HTTP-EQUIV="expires" CONTENT="Fri, 31 Dec 1999 23:59:59 GMT">

Another way to do it would be:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT='no-cache'>
This tells the browser not to cache pages


> Any downside that I may not have foreseen?

Can't think of any!

>    Also, I have seen "-1" used in place of an actual date (as shown
> below), and heard that it forces the refresh:
> <META http-equiv="Expires" content="-1">

The refresh tag is:
<META HTTP-EQUIV="refresh" CONTENT="5;URL=index.html">

The "-1" should tell the browser that the page has expired as soon as the user
views it - basically it tells that the browser shouldn't cache it.

> Does it?

The result of a quick test says: NO, it doesn't

> If so, how is the browser interpreting this--as "today's date -
> 1" or as an unknown, unrecognized or null value?

Yesterdays date?

>(I read through the
> information on META "Expires" on W3C, but didn't see any reference to
> this format.)

I don't think that W3C recommends it.

Yours,
Lauri V�in

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